Girls & Science

[Beth Shuster]

On Feb 20th, Jane Thompson wrote:

snip
>I just don't understand what the problem is? Last
>year my daughter was i
>n second place at the NSTA/Toshiba Exploravision Science awards and it made no
>difference to the Japanese if you were male or female. 
snip

  The Japanese may be gender-blind when it comes to science competitions
for secondary school children, but I have run into several female Japanese
who have come to the U.S. for grad school to escape discrimination.  In one
case, a very intelligent young woman, who already had a master's degree and
several publications under her belt, was told (by employers) that
applications from women were not being accepted.  She is now in a Ph.D.
program here, and doing well.
  As I lack first-hand knowledge of the Japanese culture, I don't know how
prevalent this type of incident is.  If typical, it suggests the existence
of a particularly sturdy glass ceiling, set at a fairly low level on the
career ladder.

Beth

Beth Shuster                            
Univ. of California                     
e-mail: eoshuster at ucdavis.edu