By Scott Simon

Scott Simon （Host）： Ever since experts became aware of a gender gap in science and technology， theyve been trying to figure out whos to blame. Often the blame has been placed on old fashioned sexism. What amounts to a boys club in many sciences and technologies that excludes women. But a recent article in The Boston Globe suggests that the answer may be women in western societies have so many opportunities， they freely choose another field.

The writer of that article called “The Freedom to Say No”is Elaine McArdle. She joins us from member station WBUR in Boston. Ms. McArdle， thanks so much for being with us.

Ms. Elaine Mcardle （Writer）： Thank you for having me.

Simon： You described two separate research projects that seemed to come out at the same conclusion that men and women make different choices. Lets talk about the Vanderbilt project first where scientists， I 1）gather， took a look at what happened to 5，000 2）mathematically gifted boys and girls over 30 years.

Ms. Mcardle： Thats right. The two researchers there started more than 30 years ago looking at students were very gifted in math and had scored very high on the math SAT and then followed them over the next decade to see the career choices and educational choices that they made.

Simon： And？

Ms. Mcardle： Well what they found was that the men tended to go into engineering， math， and computer science and then women tended to go into medicine and biological sciences or not to be in science at all.

Simon： And what were some of the motivating factors？

Ms. Mcardle： One of the interesting findings was that women who are very， very good at math also tend to be very good 3）verbally so that their career options are broader than men. Men who are very good at math tend to not be as good as women in verbal skills. So that a woman whos 4）tremendous at math could be a doctor， could be an engineer but she could also be a lawyer or she could do something entirely different altogether.

Simon： You also site the research of someone named Joshua Rosenbloom whos an economist at the University of Kansas. What was his project？

Ms. Mcardle： Joshua Rosenbloom developed a study that looked at computer careers， IT careers to look at why there were fewer women in that field than men. And what he found， what he and his colleagues found was that the single biggest factor was 5）preference， what women prefer to do at work.

Simon： Now would it be fair to say that women just enjoy working with people in greater percentage？

Ms. Mcardle： That is what both of these studies found. The IT study， for example， found that most of the time women prefer to work with other people or other kinds of organic situations where men most of the time prefer to work in inorganic situations， 6）manipulating tools and that kind of thing.

Simon： You described another study by the Canadian psychologist Susan Pinker that compares countries with more or less freedom of choice for women and what they wind up doing in their careers. What did she find？

Ms. Mcardle： That was particularly interesting in that you might assume that in a country where women were given complete freedom of choice or near to it in careers that they would end up making the same decisions that men did in their careers. What she found was that it was actually not that at all. That in countries where women had a lot of educational opportunity and a lot of freedom of choice， there was a bigger gender gap in the careers that they went into.

Simon： Now there are some people who look at the same numbers and draw different conclusions. Why dont you bring us their arguments too？

Ms. Mcardle： Naturally anyone who looks at this kind of study and these kind of results gets concerned because you worry that it will be used or leaned upon to allow sexism to continue in various fields. What these researchers as I talked with them emphasize—they are not saying that sexism does not exist， theyre saying however， that in the rich stew of someones career choice， preference is something that should be paid attention to that has not really been considered at all.

Simon： Ms. McArdle， thanks so much.

Ms. Mcardle： Thank you very much. It was really enjoyable.

司各特·西蒙（主持人）：自從專家們開始意識到在科技界職業(yè)生涯上兩性之間存在著差距，他們一直想要找出禍根淵源。老套的性別歧視往往被揪出來作為解釋，總認為，科技界之所以成為排擠女性的男子俱樂部，正是這種歧視造成的。但是，《波士頓環(huán)球》最近刊登的一篇文章提出，也許是因為西方社會的女性擁有太多的發(fā)展機會，所以一般會自由地選擇理工科技以外的其他行業(yè)。

那篇文章名為《拒絕的自由》，其作者依琳·麥卡道今天透過我們在波士頓的兄弟電臺WBUR和我們連線。麥卡道女士，你好，謝謝你參與我們的節(jié)目。

依琳·麥卡道女士（作家）：謝謝你們的邀請。

西蒙：你描述了這么兩個獨立的研究項目，兩者得出的結(jié)論是一致的，都是認為男性和女性在事業(yè)發(fā)展上作出了不同的選擇。我們先來談?wù)劮兜卤ご髮W(xué)的項目，據(jù)我了解，在這項目里，科學(xué)家們跟蹤研究了5000名數(shù)學(xué)資優(yōu)的男女生在三十年間的發(fā)展。

麥卡道女士：沒錯。這項目的兩位研究員三十年前就開始挑取那些在數(shù)學(xué)方面特別有天分，在SAT的數(shù)學(xué)考試?yán)铽@取高分的學(xué)生作為研究對象，然后一直跟蹤觀察其接下來的十年里在事業(yè)生涯、教育進修上所作的選擇。

西蒙：結(jié)果呢？

麥卡道女士：他們發(fā)現(xiàn)的是，男性一般會進入工程、數(shù)學(xué)、計算機科學(xué)這些領(lǐng)域，而女性則傾向進入藥學(xué)、生物科學(xué)或完全非理科的領(lǐng)域。

西蒙：那驅(qū)使他們做出這些選擇的都有些什么因素呢？

麥卡道女士：一個有趣的發(fā)現(xiàn)是，數(shù)學(xué)好的女性往往語言表達能力也相當(dāng)不錯，所以她們的事業(yè)選擇范圍要比男性寬廣。數(shù)學(xué)好的男性一般在語言表達上遜色于女性。所以數(shù)學(xué)資質(zhì)不凡的女生可以去當(dāng)醫(yī)生、工程師，也可以去當(dāng)律師，或者做一些完全不一樣的工作。

西蒙：你還援引了肯薩斯大學(xué)一位經(jīng)濟學(xué)家喬舒華·羅森布魯姆所做的一項研究。他的項目是關(guān)于什么的呢？

麥卡道女士：喬舒華·羅森布魯姆針對計算機IT行業(yè)做了一個研究，探求這領(lǐng)域里為什么女性比男性少。最后，他和同事們發(fā)現(xiàn)這里面最大一個原因是個人偏好，問題全在于女性喜歡選擇做什么工作。

西蒙：那是不是說，絕大部分的女性就是喜歡做一些與人打交道的工作呢？

麥卡道女士：這正是那兩個研究所得出的結(jié)論。比如說，那個IT界的調(diào)查就發(fā)現(xiàn)在大多數(shù)情況下，女性情愿和他人一起工作，或者在其他有機社群環(huán)境里工作，而男性則喜歡在無組織機構(gòu)的環(huán)境里工作，操控工具，做那一類的事。

西蒙：你還描述了加拿大心理學(xué)家蘇珊·平克的一個研究——對女性個人職業(yè)選擇自由度不同的國家作對比，看其女性最終進入何種職業(yè)領(lǐng)域。她的結(jié)論是什么呢？

麥卡道女士：你也許會以為在女性可以完全自由或者基本自由選擇職業(yè)的國度里，她們會和男性做出同樣的事業(yè)選擇。但有趣的是，她發(fā)現(xiàn)根本不

是這樣。在女性享有充分受教育機會和自由選擇權(quán)利的國家里，人們在事業(yè)發(fā)展路徑上的性別鴻溝更是明顯。

西蒙：對于同樣的數(shù)字，人們往往會得出不同的結(jié)論。你能給我們講講他們的論據(jù)嗎？麥卡道女士：當(dāng)然，看到這么一種研究和這些結(jié)論，人們總會擔(dān)心這些數(shù)據(jù)結(jié)果會被利用、被依仗，令性別歧視在各行業(yè)領(lǐng)域里繼續(xù)滋生繁衍。我跟這些研究者聊過，他們強調(diào)，性別歧視并非不存在，然而，一個人面對事業(yè)的多元選擇，“喜好”是一個我們值得關(guān)注的因素，而此前大家一直忽略考慮這一點。

西蒙：謝謝麥卡道女士。

麥卡道女士：非常感謝。很高興參與節(jié)目。CS