Yes, economics has a problem with women

from Julie Nelson

Yes, economics has a problem with women. In the news recently we’ve heard about the study of the Economics Job Market Rumors (EJMR) on-line forum. Student researcher Alice H. Wu found that posts about women were far more likely to contain words about their personal and physical issues (including “hot,” “lesbian,” “cute,” and “raped” ) than posts about men, which tended to focus more on academic and professional topics. As a woman who has been in the profession for over three decades, however, this is hardly news.

Dismissive treat of women, and of issues that impact women more than men, comes not only from the sorts of immature cowards who vent anonymously on EJMR, but even from men who probably don’t think of themselves as sexist. And because going along with professional fashion may be necessary for advancement, women economists also sometimes play along with the dominant view.

Consider a few other cases I’ve noticed during my thirty years in the profession:  

Dear National Science Foundation . . .

from Julie Nelson

The Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation recently issued a call for white papers about “next-generation research challenges.” They invited submitters to outline “grand challenge questions” that “reflect deep issues that engage fundamental assumptions behind disciplinary research traditions and are transformative.” The following are lightly edited excerpts from the white paper I submitted along with Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT.

            How can we integrate the role of values and ethics in economic analysis of climate change without sacrificing the positive aspirations of that science? 

Gender and the Financial Crisis: Maybe not what you think

from Julie Nelson

I got a call yesterday from a German TV station, asking me for ideas for a program on “Is the economy becoming female?” The two women reporters were particularly interested in the hypothetical question, “If there had been more women on Wall Street, would the financial crisis have occurred?” I’m afraid I gave them rather a more complicated and subtle response than would fit into a TV sound bite, and one that goes deeply into our assumptions about economic life.

The story they wanted—preferably with great visuals!—was about how (as they see it) women’s greater communicative and social “soft” skills are more suited to contemporary business needs than men’s (as they see it) propensities to greater aggression and risk-taking. This drives me nuts, for two reasons.