Girls and physics: the role of culture and pedagogies in widening

participation for girls in the physical sciences

“Why is it I can do hours of physics revision and still not know a thing, but when I read heat I

memorise everything? You couldn’t print a story about radiation or electromagnetic waves, could

you?”

Lucy, Staffordshire

(Heat magazine, 27 March 2010, p 56)

“The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star

with the spider web of the micrometer”

Maria Mitchell (1818 - 1889)

Astronomer and mathematician

Introduction

In this essay I set out to discuss the relationship between women and physics. Women are

notoriously underrepresented in physics (and science as a whole) Murphy and Whitelegg (2006). Out

of all the sciences, physics has the lowest participation rate for women and in addition, those that do

participate often leave (Barbosa, 2003). Hazari and Potvin (2005) reproduce a graph which shows a

decline in the percentage of women participating in physics in the United States, from just above

45% at high school to around 20% at undergraduate level and then around 5% at full professor level.

In Sweden, 6% of professors of physics in are women and parti cipation rates by women in physics at

undergraduate level ranges from between 20 to 35% (Danielsson and Linder, 2009).

I was curious about the low participation rates and wanted to investigate the reasons for them. I

was also curious about feminism and the nature of science as both had been issues that I had

wondered about if I should think and more know more about. In fact, until I started writing this

essay and studying SEH806 I had not even considered the difference between biological sex and

gender, to me the two were the same. I did not understand that ‘gender’ was a social construct and

that by some gender could be considered a culture with its own sets of practices (Danielsson and

Linder, 2009).

Hazari and Potvin (2005) mention three ‘viewpoints’ that could account for low participation rates

for girls/females in physics. These were:

Inherent differences – there are biological differences between males and females that

make females less likely to study physics

Socialised differences – girls learn not to want to study physics.

Cultural bias – which brings the two above together because it “focuses on problems in the

community of physics that causes females to lose interest or opt out…”

This essay chose to focus on the last and in particular considers: how might the culture of physics

dissuade women from participating in physics?

The two quotes at the head of the essay, although separated by over 100 years, perhaps hint at the

issue of culture as being one of the reasons why girls/women are underrepresented in physics. Lucy

is obviously what we might call a ‘normal’ teenage girl. She reads Heat magazine. Heat is a weekly

publication whose main preoccupations are celebrity gossip and fashion, both subjects we would

expect many teenage girls and women to be interested in. Both subjects are firmly embedded into

what we might call ‘female/teenage’ culture. Lucy realises, however, that she finds it more difficult

to remember physics information than what is or is not in vogue and tongue in cheek asks the

magazine to include some physics information that might help her revision. Maria Mitchell also

speaks about a subject that was part of ‘female’ culture in the 1800s that being needlework and also

what was not part of a female culture, astronomy. Her quote tries to bridge the gap between what

is ‘female’ and what is not by emphasising that the skills required in both are of equal importance,

the same or very transferable.

Many things contribute to the establishment and maintenance of a culture, including traditions,

members of the culture and their practices, so I attempted to look at how to determine what the

gender of a ‘physics’ culture was by drawing on writings about gender and science both in the past

and in the present. There was very little material dealing with the culture of physics and given that

there was more material about gender and science I have used a good deal of that to support my

discussions. Does science have a gender? And if so, does physics? How does this ‘gender’ influence

the nature of science practice? Is there an impact of gender, either in terms of taking a feminist

viewpoint or being female, on the type of investigations that are performed in science? Does that

then impact on knowledge?

The perceptions of scientists by the public were also discussed in order to explore the idea that a

culture’s membership may also affect whether outsiders feel that they would be able to participate

in that culture. Do the perceived members of the ‘science culture’ dissuade women from

participating in it?

The culture of physics many women will be exposed to that will determine their future participation

in the subject will be that presented to them in educational contexts. Therefore, how physics is

taught to them is particularly important and in that context I discuss two disparate learning theories

and pedagogies. Do girls/women learn in a different way to men and if so how? What is the

dominant learning theory in operation at present? Does it encourage women to participate in

physics?

The readings and discussions that comprised Block Two of SEH806 were particularly important in this

regard. The two learning theories I looked were; the transmission model of learning and situated

cognition. The former is sometimes identified as being a ‘masculine’ pedagogy and the latter has

been identified by several writers (e.g. Brickhouse, (2001), Murphy and Whitelegg (2006), Danielsson

and Linder,(2009)), as being an appropriate feminist pedagogy. Situated cognition was particularly

interesting because it potentially united the two themes explored in the essay: culture and

pedagogy, as well as involving the concept of ‘identity’ in relation to memberships of cultures which

I discuss briefly.

I have used the term ‘culture’ rather than community because I wanted to discuss historical

influences that might influence the knowledge and practices of science, and I felt that ‘culture’

better represented this holistic view. However it is fair to say that ‘community’ as it is understood in

the social sciences could be used interchangeably with culture in many contexts.

It should also be recognised that the members of the female gender are themselves extremely

diverse. I realise I have taken a very general view of my own gender and this should be borne i n

mind when reading the essay.

(Introduction:997 words)

Approach

This essay has taken the form of a literature review and I used a variety of methods to track down

information. I had decided that I wanted to write an essay on girls and physics, so I started by

entering “girls and physics” into the Google search engine. This identified Murphy and Whitelegg’s

(2006) very thorough review of literature and I understood that it would be an excellent source for

references - even though the review itself presented challenges to me. It was so thorough itself

that I was worried that I would merely write an essay that would paraphrase that review. However,

as I undertook my reading I found that I could construct an essay that was my own voice because I

had become interested in cultures and pedagogy and I chose to pursue that line of enquiry rather

than produce an essay that merely detailed why females did not participate in physics. I also find

the Google search engine a very good source for more generic information, it was through Google

that I came across Fox-Keller’s and Barr and Birke’s books. By also entering “What is a Physics

culture” into Google I came across Danielsson and Linder (2009) and their very recent work which

also linked back to Brickhouse’s work on situated cognition.

I took the view that I wanted to explore what was interesting to me, so I did not consciously decide

that I would concentrate on using course material, although the course material was also very useful

for finding references of interest and several references were useful when I was discussing the

nature of science.

I probably rely far too much on Google as a way of finding information. However, I was very strict

about what sources of information I used in the essay. I avoided i nformation that was presented in

websites I was not familiar with and I preferred to track down information when it came from an

established academic journal, particularly if a subscription for the journal was held by the Open

University library.

I also used personal correspondence in one instance as I was having trouble tracking down a

definition of a male pedagogy. My source was very credible, having substantial experience in the

scholarship of teaching and learning and also being a science teacher in a University herself. I also

relied on personal observation for the claim that the transmission method is the predominate

method of teaching and learning in action. Although I have not made a systematic study of the use

of the transmission model, every academic (around 20) I have asked in the past year has confirmed

its dominance in our Universities. As I come into contact with senior academics who have strategic

responsibility for teaching and learning in Universities I consider them a good source.

The heat reference I found while taking a break from writing the essay and sitting down with a cup

of coffee and some chocolate. It was a serendipitous moment, it bridged two cultures and I make no

apologies for using it.

(Approach: 507 words)

Discussion

The gender of science

Science has a culture of its own that any individual have to join, live in and contribute to and as such

has its own defining features. As the subject of this essay is women and physics I focused on the

attributes of science culture that are connected with gender and I have focused on (i) the nature of

science and how scientific knowledge is perceived to be constructed including discussion about how

objectivity and subjectivity are perceived as being related to science, (ii) how gender may have

altered the ‘reality’ of scientific knowledge and (iii) views of the membership of those in science

culture.

(i) Gender and the nature of science and how scientific knowledge is constructed: objectivity and

subjectivity

The nature of science was explored in the SEH806 reading “What is science?: Teaching Science in

Secondary Schools” (Reiss, 2002). Reiss is concerned with science as taught at school and he argues

that in that context, science is often presented as immutable, universal and acultural. Science then

is seen by many people, including scientists, as being about ”scientists discovering eternal truths that

exist independently of them and of the cultural context in which these discoveries are made.” (p.4).

Science is then objective and not subjective; that is, removed from the individual and not subject to

social or cultural factors.

Fox-Keller (1996 p.6-7) also notes that there is a "deeply rooted popular mythology that casts

objectivity, reason, and mind as male, and subjectivity, feeling, and nature as female." Fox-Keller

writes very detailed accounts about the history of gender in science in her book “Reflections on

Gender and Science” most of which is too detailed to explore in this essay, but she postulates that

that a division between male/female, objectivity/subjectivity, reason/emotion in culture in general

seemed to happen at the time of the Enlightenment (Chapter 3) with the rational/male/objective

attributes identified firmly within ‘science’ and the emotional/female/subjective located outside

science.

Brick house (2001) also lays the blame for these dualistic definitions of ‘science’ and ‘not -science’

firmly at the door of the Enlightenment. Both Brickhouse and Fox-Keller argue convincingly that

‘’objective’ and ‘subjective’ as understood in this context, as part of the definition of the nature of

science, should be re-merged. As a model for achieving this, Brickhouse (2001) cites Harding's

(1991) 'theory' of strong objectivity which states 'we need an objectivity that is understood as part

of the natural and social worlds and therefore also accountable to them'. I.e. science is neither

objective or subjective, there is no split between the two and that good science would involve both

in a “strong objectivity”. In other words, when considering the nature of science knowledge one

should realise that it is partly objective (situated in the natural world) and partly subjective (situated

in the social world) i.e. there is no science knowledge that transcends culture and gender.

Hodson, (1998) explores the need for a more personalised science, one in which scientific knowledge

is built as part of social enterprise, through a ‘community’ and therefore links objectivity and

subjectivity:” If one takes the view that science is a communal activity, and that the ideas of

particular scientists only become accepted as scientific knowledge when they achieve consensus

within the community of scientists, it follows that many of the sociological, psychological, political

and economic issues that influence individuals could, and sometimes will, influence the decisions

that the community makes.” (p.16)

This historical separation of objective and subjective also has had consequences for how scientific

knowledge has become situated in science education. The knowledge itself is removed from any

kind of human or social context and presented almost as a self -contained package – it is made

abstract. Barr and Birke (1998) speak about the rise of abstraction in science education in their book

"Common Science? Women, Science and Knowledge" on page 28 and suggest "It taught a particular

kind of science, divorced from people's needs and minds."

Bruner (1996) also argues that there has been a divorce between human narratives and science

which has meant “logical-scientific thinking” has permeated science education. Bruner states “...it is

no secret that for many of the young now in school, ‘science’ has come to seem ‘inhuman’ and

‘uncaring’ and ‘off-putting’” He goes onto to say “The image of science as a human and cultural

undertaking might be improved if it were also conceived as a history of human beings overcoming

received ideas- whether Lavosier overcoming the dogma of phlogiston, Darwin rethinking

respectable creationism, or Freud daring to look under the smug surface of our self-satisfaction. We

may have erred in divorcing science from the narrative of culture. ” (Bruner, 1996, p.42) .

(ii) Gender effects and the ‘reality’ of scientific knowledge

In addition, to the separation of knowledge from context, there have also been studies that have

looked at how the ‘reality’ of scientific knowledge may have been changed as result of feminist or

female interventions. Fox-Keller (2004) ponders the impact feminism may have had on science

knowledge. She notes that in terms of participation in science in North America, that there had been

increases in the percentage of doctorates awarded to women in the natural sciences over the

previous 30 years. An increase had also been reflected in the numbers of profe ssorships now held by

women in the natural sciences (page 7). However, in the rest of the paper she describes cultural

feminist shifts in biological knowledge that were realised because a different perspective was used

to investigate particular subjects in reproductive and evolutionary biology, i.e. the researchers

discovered new findings about science “because they went looking for them" page 8. These involved

the importance of females or objects attributed to females i.e. ova in fertilisation, the sexual

behaviour of female animals. Fox-Keller suggests that the very accuracy of science knowledge may

have been compromised in the past by an overly masculine viewpoint which had been cultured out

of historical tradition and transmitted to scientists in the present.

Similarly, Fox-Keller (1986) page 139 chapter 7, speculates whether quantum mechanics can

adequately describe the nature of reality and that it may suffer from the same gender constraints as

exhibited around the role of the ova in fertilisation.

This illustrates how practice influenced by culture and historical tradition can influence the nature of

knowledge. This knowledge then percolates back into the culture and reinforces its cultural

traditions. If the knowledge created by the culture is not "female friendly" then why would females

be attracted to it? As Fox-Keller(1996 p. 11) says about Boyle’s Law, but equally relevant here

“Judgement about which phenomena are worth studying, which kinds of data are significant -as well

as which descriptions (or theories) of those phenomena and most adequate, satisfying, useful, and

even reliable - depend critically on the social, linguistic, unscientific practices of those making the

judgement in question” and this will include their gender.

(iii) Views of scientists: the members of the science culture

Members of a culture are as important to culture as historical traditions. It is also through the

actions of its members that cultures are defined. It follows then that the perceptions of what kinds

of people are members of that culture may influence whether those outside will wish to join it.

What do women think of scientists and how might that impact on their perception of science

culture?

In order to investigate the images of scientists that women might hold, Barr and Birke (1998 p. 29)

asked 120 women about their images of scientists. The responses they received could be matched

to six stereotypes of scientists previously identified by another researcher plus one extra that had

been identified by Barr and Birke. These were:

The mad scientist pursuing their work obsessively with no care for social consequences

The absent minded professor with little or no social skills

The emotionless scientist who values reason over emotion

The adventurer scientist pursuing glory and exploration

The helpless (and therefore inadequate) scientist whose experiments go out of control

The idealist scientist in search of a ‘scientific utopia’

The elitist scientist ‘motivated to maintain his/her place in social hierarchies’ and speaks in a

language that those outside the elite cannot understand.

Barr and Birke stress that although these are stereotypes that did not matter. What did matter was

“...the persistence of these images and their general negativity.” (p.30) Even those stereotypes with

more positive connotations, the adventurer and the idealist were identified by relativity few women

who took part in the study.

More recently in 2003, Sir Christopher Frayling undertook an exercise with schoolchildren to ‘draw a

scientist’. This was a similar exercise that had been undertaken almost 40 years before by the

educationalist Dwain Chambers. The results were as Frayling put it “depressing” , he says “...more

than half of the results featured buttoned lab coats with pockets containing pencils, pens or test

tubes; spectacles, mouth open and uneven teeth; frizzy, spiky/tufty hair or bald head; arms wide

open with each hand clutching a bubbling or smoking test tube, or in some cases a syringe.” At least

girls “... drew smiling scientists more often than the boys”, and Frayling notes that the numbers of

girls drawing female scientists had risen from 1.4% in the earlier to approximately 50%. (Frayling,

2006).

A trend can be seen from both these studies. This that scientists are seen as removed from society,

different and eccentric.

Pedagogy

The culture of physics many women will be exposed to that will determine their future participation

in the subject will be that presented to them in educational contexts. Therefore, how physics is

taught to them is particularly important and in that context I discuss two disparate learning theories

and pedagogies. Do girls/women learn in a different way to men and if so how? What is the

dominant learning theory in operation at present? Does it encourage women to participate in

physics?

Hazari and Potvin (2005) argue that any cultural bias of physics will be transmitted through three

routes, one of these being via pedagogy. They say “The cultural bias of physics is transmitted in

three ways: pedagogically, by transmitting a narrow message about what it means to do physics

rather than allowing for individuals to define it for themselves; academically by defining what is

acceptable physics research and what is not… and socially, through the structure, interactions and

treatment in the field”. I have dealt with some aspects of the last two in the previous section where

I discussed that physics culture is partly presented in terms of: the nature of the physics knowledge

and the views women will have of members of the physics cultures, physicists themselves. In this

section I will attempt to illustrate how the pedagogical treatment of physics, influenced by its

culture, may have impeded female participation in physics.

Gender and learning styles

Head (1996) investigated differences in learning styles between males and females and summarised

what he thought these were as oppositional pairs:

Males extract information (i.e. remove it from context) and females embed information (i.e.

relate it to other knowledge)

Males are more impulsive and willing to take risks, females are more cautious and reflective.

This is also reflected in the work of Danielsson and Linder (2009) who noted that male

students tend to launch themselves into experiments and tinker with equipment whereas

females tend to read the instructions and take more care before they start experimental

work (Danielsson and Linder, 2009)

Self-value – males tend to blame failure on external factors but attribute success to

themselves, girls do the opposite

Males tend to compete whereas females tend to co-operate.

These differences have implications for how physics could be taught and assessed. For example, it is

thought that multiple choice questions (MCQs) favour males because the tests use the extraction of

information model. This can be circumvented by devising MCQs that are complex and more than

straight forward identification of the correct answer. Classroom activities could be designed to

avoid competitive activities and encourage co-operation. (Head, 1996).

Stadler et al (2000) investigated the different learning styles of boys and girls who were studying

physics. They found that boys were more likely to find meaning and understanding of physics within

the bounds of the subject, whereas girls were more likely to seek understanding of physics by

attempting to relate the knowledge in a wider context. In other words “..boys appear to be more

interested in the internal coherence of physics (and technology) whereas the girls tend to look for an

external coherence...” (p.420). Murphy and Whitelegg (2006 p.4) also noted that, girls tended to

need to see the relevance of physics to themselves and the things that concern them more than

boys did. It should be noted that both these studies describe ‘tendencies’ and indeed Murphy and

Whitelegg (2006 p. 14) do specify that for some boys the abstraction of knowledge is not seen as an

issue and in some cases is considered as a challenge. However, it would seem that abstraction of

knowledge from context in course material would appear in general to favour the learning styles of

boys rather than that of girls. How does this relate to the way physics is taught and learnt and is this

gendered?

‘Male’ and ‘female’ pedagogies

An attempt was made to find a definition of a male pedagogy with little success. When one

undertakes a search using “Google” very little useful information emerges about a male pedagogy,

although feminist pedagogies abound. After such a search, this one quote was found in the College

English journal, in a paper which was detailing an academic discourse in relation to another paper.

The quote says “Let's identify a masculine pedagogy as any strategy which positions the teacher as

the center of authority in the classroom. At this center, the teacher knows the "truth" in a positivistic

sense. Her duty is to some-how give her students this "truth." In this framework, lectures are an

ideal way of transmitting large bodies of information to the awaiting students.” Ewald (1992) p.354.

In addition, a science lecturer colleague in correspondence came up with the following definition

“Male pedagogy relies on the notion that the lecturer is central to a teaching experience and the

students are (a) peripheral to the experience and (b) subordinate to the experience”. (Tierney,

2010, personal correspondence).

Murphy et al (2008 p.16) offer “a set of characteristics of a transmission model of teaching and

learning”, which connect the transmission model to the masculine pedagogies above. These

characteristics include the teacher being the authority that transmits knowledge with the student

being the passive receiver. The knowledge that is transmitted is entirely objective and therefore

outside and independent of the social, cultural and gender context of the learner. These

characteristics are also clearly resonant with the historical definitions of the cultures of science and

physics described in the previous section.

In my previous section, I argue that the separation of objectivity/subjectivity has resulted in the

separation of knowledge from context, i.e. science knowledge has become increasingly abstracted.

Barr and Birke (1998) also directly attribute abstraction to the transmission model of learning where

the learner is "a passive recipient of knowledge" (p.28). Coupled with the observations above

regarding males tending to extract knowledge (and therefore being able to cope with the abstract) it

would seem reasonable to assume that the transmission model may favour males over females.

Unfortunately, in many aspects of education (particularly higher education) the transmission model

is still the pre-dominant model of teaching (personal experience) and it can be considered a

masculine pedagogy.

Brickhouse (2001) sets out a strong argument for taking up ‘situated cognition’ as a suitable fe minist

pedagogy. She states that there are commonalities between feminist epistemologies and situated

cognition as both counteract the dualistic schism of knowledge and context encouraged by the

Enlightenment. Situated cognition does not assign special contexts for learning, learning happens all

the time in many different contexts. “Learning is happening all the time – whenever a person

engages in activity in the world. Learning is unavoidable. It is what is required in the process of

becoming a person” (p.286). Just by existing and interacting with the world, the person learns.

More importantly in terms of knowledge, situated cognition argues that knowledge is not abstracted

from the learner but constructed by the learner locally, individually and socially - “Knowledge,

including scientific knowledge is not merely influenced by its context, it is co-constitutive of

context”. (Brickhouse, p 285). This would seem to be the antithesis of the abstract and objective

way knowledge is presented in the transmission model. The learner is situated at the centre of their

own learning; if learning happens all the time the emphasis on the teacher as being the source and

authority for knowledge is diminished. This is consistent with the pedagogies that feminists have

sought to develop (Brickhouse, p. 283).

Another important characteristic of the situated cognition theory is its emphasis on learner identity

and how identity can be transformed by learning. Additionally, situated cognitists believe that

“Learning is not merely a matter of acquiring knowledge, it is a matter of deciding what kind of

person you are and want to be and engaging in those activities that make one part of the relevant

communities” (Brickhouse, 2009 emphasis mine). In other words, joining a new community (or

culture) might require a change in personal identity or at least, might require that a comparison be

made between self and the community in question to ascertain the degree of ‘fit’. If so, this would

have consequences for women who may find the masculine culture of physics offputting.

Brickhouse’s article is fundamentally a theoretical one and how the integration of situated cognition

and gender theory can actually be achieved in practice is not developed by her. However, Danielsson

and Linder (2009) suggests a way of doing this by merging situated cognition and post-structural

gender identity into a conceptual framework. This framework uses data obtained from student

undergoing physics laboratory work to theorise that gender identity is an active process that

changes as the student develops their ‘emerging physicist identity’. Danielsson and Linder treat

both genders, masculine and feminine as being ‘communities of practice’ in similar ways as physics

can be considered a community of practice. When students start to learn physics they in effect join

a community (or culture) and in order to succeed in that community (or even just become a

member), they must learn the community's rules and adapt themselves to them, perhaps develop a

‘physics identity’.

Danielsson and Linder (2009) went on to explore the idea of women having a ‘physics identity’ they

found the women they interviewed often saw themselves as not participating in "traditional

femininity". They often saw themselves as one of the boys or as ‘tomboys’. This could be seen as a

sacrifice between the conflicting demands of two cultures – ‘traditional feminine’ on one hand and

‘physics’ on the other. Danielsson says “This positioning as a non--participation in a traditional

femininity is common to many women within science and technology; they tend to explain their

presence in such a masculine subject by constructing themselves as different from other women,

i.e., as "being one of the boys -- as participating in a masculinity". In other words, participation in

physics may require some a kind of femininity that has masculine aspects.

(Discussion: 3,220 words)

Conclusion

This essay has sought to examine the role of culture and pedagogy as reasons for the low

participation rate of women in physics. I have looked at culture from a variety of viewpoints; these

being the nature of science and knowledge, perceptions of the members of the physics culture and

pedagogy. For me there is one uniting theme through all of these viewpoints; that is physics seems

to attract a process that acts to exclude it and those that participate from what are perceived to be

the main human cultures and activities. Physics (and indeed science) itself in the nature in which it is

constructed, practiced and taught is exclusive. It is through this process that I believe women are

particularly marginalised from physics, although I would also argue that this process also acts to

marginalise some men from physics as well.

There is a serious message underpinning the potential for schoolchildren to cause hilarity in their

depictions of scientists (Frayling 2006). Scientists are still being perceived as ‘outsiders’ to

mainstream culture, as being different, removed, non-social and sometimes not even human or

showing humanity. In a way, we see a mirror process with images of scientists that we do with

science knowledge, it is almost like there is a view there that society has been removed from

scientists and science (or vica versa), and that scientists are also not people, not normal, warm,

compassionate human beings. Pehaps it is time we “put people back into science” (Hodson, 1998

p.20). Hodson argues passionately “I want the curriculum to show students that these people

(scientists) can be warm, sensitive, humorous and passionate. More importantly, I want them to

realize that people who are warm, sensitive, humorous and passionate can still become scientists,

though they are required to conduct their work in accordance with codes of practice established,

scrutinized and maintained by the community of scientists.” Hodson (1998) p. 20.

As noted above the nature of science has long been projected as being objective and somehow

removed from experience. This emphasis on objectivity, the removal of knowledge from context

suggest that physics as it is presently practiced has what would be termed in sociological circles as

having a ‘masculine’ gender.

The dominant pedagogy in operation at the moment, the transmission model, treats the learner as

relatively unimportant in the learning process as well as encouraging the abstraction of knowledge

from context. This method seems to suit some males (but not all) and does not particularly support

female learning processes either. Social cognition learning theories, aim to situate knowledge in

the context of the learner, because it places the learner at the centre of their own learning process

and therefore encourages the learner to make their own meaning of knowledge. As observations

show (Head (1996), Murphy and Whitelegg (2006)) this pedagogy may better suit women because it

might allow them to value their own experiences and make sense of what they are learning through

their own processes. It could also be argued that situated cognition may also benefit those male

students who may struggle with abstracted knowledge.

It is easy to see, that women might not relate themselves as being potential members of the physics

culture, not only is it taught in a manner that they tend not to relate to, it has also expressed

scientific knowledge in ways that do not appear to value females from any species or those things in

science that are attributed to the feminine i.e. ova and female role in sexual activity (Fox-Keller,

2004).It is also a culture that has a high percentage of male participation and that also values ‘male’

characteristics such as ‘objectivity’, competiveness over so-called ‘female’ characteristics such as

‘subjectivity’ and collaboration. There is also some evidence that women experience discrimination

in the physics workplace and negative attitudes about their presence (Ivie and Guo (2006)). Women

who do participate in physics may have to undergo some reconciliation between their female

cultural identities with the cultural identity they perceive exists for physics, e.g., the women perceive

themselves as not being like ‘other’ women, they are ‘tomboys’ or ‘one of the boys’. (Danielsson

(2009)) It may then follow is the case then that those women who see themselves as belonging to

traditional feminine communities cannot reconcile enough to take part in the physics community.

I approached this essay with a fairly neutral attitude about feminism and in many ways I have had to

re-position my own thoughts as I read deeper into the subjects of gender, f eminism and culture.

However, it seems to me on reading much of this material that the notions of feminising cultures or

a feminist culture are just more realistic views or perceptions of how humans as a whole learn and

participate in the various cultures in their lives. I wonder if labelling these ideas as "feminist"

creations alienates many people in the science community from embracing these ideas in a similar

way to how science may alienate women. The situation is a serious one, the culture of physics w ill

not change if those responsible for setting research agendas, designing curricula, devising pedagogic

strategies, teaching future physicists and hiring academics feel threatened by the feminist agenda.

Perhaps there is also a potential for ‘feminist’ cultures to re-situate themselves in the context of

physics which might include refining language and messages.

(Discussion: 888 words)

Total word count: 5623)

References

Barbosa, M. (2003) Equity for women in physics, Physics World July 2003 pp.14-15

Barr, J. and Birke, L. (1998), ‘Common Science? Women, Science and Knowledge’, Indiana University

Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis.

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