Maria J. Trumpler, lecturer on the history of science, says that groups like WISHR are necessary to make sure women know their interest in science does not have to end with their undergraduate years.

“Women still don’t get as far as their careers in science as men do and we don’t know why,” Trumpler says. “And this organization is supposed to explore those [reasons].”

Trumpler says the disparity in the numbers of men and women in the sciences is a result of cultural expectations of behavior based on gender.

“If we think that a really important part of learning an academic subject is putting it in your own words, in a lab meeting or discussion setting, and getting constructive responses, we have to make sure men and women feel equally comfortable doing that,” Trumpler says. “Gender would be at work in students’ choices to participate, to raise their hands, to risk being wrong and also the kind of expectations the teaching fellow has for them based on their gender and backgrounds.”

“I’m sure there are men who are uncomfortable too, but women are more at risk in speaking up in a setting perceived as male than men are,” she adds.

Georgi says he thinks things have changed for women.

He says he sees women taking on a leadership role in class more often now than a few years ago. But with more women participating in the sciences now, he says, the physics department must avoid becoming “complacent.”

“In the sciences, it’s so obvious there’s a problem that recognizing there’s a problem is not the issue,” Georgi says. “This is a really recent development and these gains could easily be reversed unless they propagate up the system.”

McKay Professor of Computer Science Margo I. Seltzer ’83 says she believes more female undergraduates would be attracted to the sciences if the courses focused more on the way science can be practically employed in the world.

“Any effort to relate the technology to its applications are likely to have payback,” she says.

Trumpler says that many of the women who become dissatisfied with science concentrations are disillusioned and intimidated by the big introductory classes.

“Large intro classes are so impersonal and so big…that they wean people out based on how well they can do on tests,” Trumpler says, pointing out that this is not necessarily the best way to tell whether someone will be a good scientist.

Trumpler says she has been pleased to see the increase in freshman seminars offered in the natural sciences. She says that may be just the kind of small-group instruction that could allow for a hands-on, collaborative style of learning that would draw more women at Harvard into the sciences.

Sonnert and Holton, on the contrary, don’t believe that women actually learn differently than men. In their studies, they observed that smaller factors—like less financial support from their families—cumulatively add up to make it more difficult for women to successfully pursue careers in science.

But even those women who make it through their educations and enter academic careers in the sciences often find that science is an area of intellectual pursuit developed by men and for men. Factors including the way research is done—largely by individuals—and the intense and sometimes merciless competition, are turning women off to science, some say.