If you look through the shelves of science books, you'll find row after row of books written by men. This can be terribly off-putting for women.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The only difference between men and women in science is that the women have the babies. This makes it more difficult for women in science but should not be seen as a barrier, for it is merely another challenge to be overcome.
It is difficult to get men to pick up a female author. Women will read men, but men won't read women.
In science, technology, engineering and mathematics, men far outnumber women in the classroom and the boardroom.
In life sciences, we find a reasonable balance between men and women. In engineering and computer science, we have a major problem. A very small percentage of women will be in computer science.
The exact sciences, which would be considered a priori as little adapted to women, for example mathematics, astronomy and physics, are exactly those in which thus far they have most distinguished themselves. This contains a warning against too precipitate conclusions about the intellectual life of woman.
It's in everyone's best interest to help close the gender gap in the sciences.
I never had a single female professor throughout my whole education, from the beginning of university to the end. Even all the books were about men; I never really liked reading books about the history of science, and I never really understood why.
It's an old trick now, God knows, but it works every time. At the very moment women start to expand their place in the world, scientific studies deliver compelling reasons for them to stay home.
In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.
It's a woman's book but I think the men will read it too.