Beyond the Impostor Complex:
Lawrence Women in Science

Lawrence Today, Spring 1997, Vol. 77, No. 3

By Gordon Brown

Editor's note: Chronic underrepresentation of women in the science disciplines is a problem of national scope with economic, political, social, and personal implications. Historically, America's culture of education, from the grade-school arithmetic class to the university science lab, has been very good at sending girls and young women unmistakable signals that females are not equal to males in the sciences. Untrue and unfortunate, these messages still persist in too many quarters. Lawrence and its ilk-- that is, liberal arts colleges rather than large research universities--seem to be doing the best job of sending competent, qualified women scientists to the graduate schools and the scientific professions. Here are some thoughts on why that is so.

Call her Susan B. She's a composite Lawrence University woman science student, which means that, while she is fictitious, everything we are going to say about her is true.

Susan B. came to Lawrence because she wanted the close interaction with faculty members that a small college provides. She already had demonstrated interest and ability in her scientific field of interest, in an advanced high school program or possibly a summer internship. She's likely to be a double major in two sciences or in a science and another liberal arts area, possibly music. She truly enjoys the challenge and discovery of scientific inquiry, but she doesn't "live in the lab"; she has a variety of other interests, ranging from student publications to intramural athletics to volunteer community service. She works closely with a faculty mentor on a project of her own related to the professor's research specialty, has worked as a summer research assistant in close collaboration with her professor, and will be presenting her research findings in a professional setting, either at an appropriate academic conference or as co-author of a scholarly paper with her faculty sponsor. She plans to attend graduate school in her area of specialization and is expecting to teach or do research or both.

Susan B. is a very impressive person, and there are more of her all the time. A recent national study ranked Lawrence among the top one hundred institutions by percentage of women graduates earning degrees in biology and in the top seven percent (number sixty-three) of all four-year institutions (including major research universities) as a baccalaureate-degree source of natural science doctorates earned by women.

Over the past five years, women have received forty percent of the natural-science and mathematics degrees conferred by Lawrence. Between seven and thirteen Lawrence women go on to graduate school in science fields immediately following graduation each year.

Women comprise forty-one percent of the Lawrence graduates who continue their educations in the natural sciences.

What works for women

"I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand." (Confucius)

A science education at Lawrence is a rigorous, active, research-rich experience that places a high value on independent competency but also on collaboration (with both faculty members and peers) and on styles of cooperative learning.

At Lawrence, faculty members do not teach students about science; they teach science, and, in turn, their students learn science by doing science.

A science education at Lawrence is a good experience for women because, frankly, it is a good experience for all students. Still, some of its characteristics make it especially helpful to women:

"At a big university," says Associate Professor of Chemistry Mary Blackwell, who did her undergraduate work at the University of Illinois, Urbana, "your main interaction is with your peers/fellow students--and it's generally a sink-or-swim, competitive, relationship.

"At Lawrence," Blackwell continues, "the principal interaction is between the student and a mentoring faculty member--a learning environmnent in which women flourish."

Beth DeStasio, '83, assistant professor of biology, says that there is a non-competitive learning environment at Lawrence that permits individuals--women and men--to develop strengths, to acquire and practice skills, to gain confidence, and to "learn what research is, right from the beginning."

A word often heard in discussions of science education at Lawrence is nurturing, used in reference to a faculty-student relationship that is both collaborative and supportive. And, although there is no question that male science faculty members support and nurture their students, the presence of visible female faculty role models is key to the development of self-confident, capable women science graduates.

The hmm factor

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries,
is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather,
'hmm . . . that's funny. . . .'"
(Isaac Asimov)

One thing that was evident in the women scientists interviewed for this article--faculty members and students both--is that they all are enjoying being where they are and doing what they are doing. These are people who smile when they say the word laboratory.

Nancy Wall, assistant professor of biology, talks about the joy inherent in "the experience of discovery: an instant of revelation followed by a cascade of questions. There are always questions."

What the hands-on, research-oriented "doing" of science at Lawrence teaches students, she says, is "what science really is--a process, not just a bunch of facts in a textbook."

Women students, she adds, bring much to this process: they listen well, pay attention, think about the questions, and find more questions.

"Women tend to approach problems on a more gradual slope than men do," says Karen Harpp, assistant professor of chemistry. "If a man would dive into the middle of a problem and then sort his way out, a woman might come at it a little more systematically.

"What we want to see in science students," Harpp adds, "is a systematic approach but with imagination as well--and you often find that in both men and women."

Are there other differences in learning styles between men and women? Perhaps. Marcia Bjornerud, associate professor of geology, suggests that there were some fundamental assumptions of traditional, male-dominated science that women, now entering the profession in greater numbers, are beginning to question. One of these, she says, is the traditional assumption of evolutionary theory that says that altruistic behavior in nature is irrational and anti-survival. Women scientists, she says, tend to question portrayals of nature that mimic power relationships and impose human constructs on the natural world.

In other eras, Bjornerud says, the few women who succeeded in science usually did so by accepting male assumptions and behaviors, including an emphasis on competitiveness, and "doing science the way men did science."

Today it is more widely accepted that male and female students bring different strengths to the classroom and lab. Men, for example, tend to feel that they have to be in authority. If a male student and a female student are both asked a question to which they do not know the answer, the man may try to bluff his way out of the situation; the woman will probably say she doesn't know.

"Women don't feel that they have to know the answer," Mary Blackwell says. "Women don't do well when you have to be an authority and it is a disgrace to say you don't know."

Still with us, even in these slightly more enlightened times, Blackwell says, is the so-called "impostor complex," the deep-down feeling that, despite your obvious abilities and demonstrated accomplishments, you really are faking it, that you are a fraud and should fear being "found out."

"Too many young women," she says, "do not realize that they have to face down the demon that keeps telling them they are inadequate."

Inadequate, in fact, is the last thing they are. Let's meet some representative recent or current Lawrence women science students--the real "Susan B's" of a rising generation of women scientists: