On Gender Equality and Imposter Syndrome: A Case Study and Life Stories by Astrophysicist Jocelyn Graham Bell

This is Josephine Wong's first blogpost with us! She's an amazingly talented PhD student in physics at Stanford University and we're so excited to share her incredible writing with all of you. 

Screenshot of Jocelyn Bell's presentation on the current state of female participation in astronomy. Credit: Josephine Wong. 

On a warm June morning, a crowd of astronomers filed into Exhibit Hall C at the Pasadena Convention Center to listen to the first Plenary Speaker of the AAS 240 conference, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Burnell, known for her discovery of pulsars in the 1960s, was the year’s recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal, which recognizes not only outstanding work in astronomy, but also contributions to the field through leadership, education, and administration (1). Indeed, Burnell lives up to the mark. She has advocated tirelessly for increasing opportunities and representation of women and other minority groups in physics research. She has done research in almost all wavelengths of astronomy, from radio to gamma rays, and made important discoveries in the field, demonstrating the contribution that women have in astronomy. And her omission from the Nobel Prize, which her advisor, Antony Hewish, received for the discovery of pulsars, sparked controversy over and illustrated how that contribution too often goes unrecognized. For many reasons, Burnell holds rock star status in the astrophysics community. That she was going to appear live (albeit virtually) at the AAS was very exciting.
 
During the plenary, Burnell spoke on the current state of female participation in astronomy. She used as her main example the percentage of female membership in the International Astronomical Union (IAU) from 2005 to 2020. Some of the numbers are included in the chart below.

IAU Percentage of Female Membership
	Brazil	China (Nanjing)	India	Netherlands	Spain	USA	UK	World Average
2005	20	12	6	9	18	11	10	13
2010	23	15	8	12	18	12	12	15
2018	22	13	9	11	20	14	13	17
2020	23	13	14	19	22	17	13	19

 

On a global average, female membership does increase, from 12.8% to 18.3%. However, the breakdown by country appears “stuck,” to use Burnell’s words. Notably, South and Central American countries consistently score above average while Asian and Euro-centric countries repeatedly rank below average. One noticeable exception is Netherlands, which sees its female membership move up from 9% in 2005 to the world average in 2020. Burnell asked some Dutch astronomers about this and they hypothesized that the cause was that, for a few years, universities in the Netherlands were allowed to appoint only women. India’s membership numbers also changes quite a bit, from 6% in 2005 (when the global average was 13%) to 14% in 2020 (global average then was 19%). When asked about this during Q & A, Burnell responded by saying that leadership by one female physicist, by the name of Rohini Godbuli, may be at least partly responsible for the increase in female participation. Coincidentally, the Q & A speaker happened to be a former classmate of Godbuli, and he attested (to the resounding amusement of the audience) that Godbuli was indeed a "force to be reckoned with." It seems that strong female leadership and efforts to recruit female scientists can go a long way in increasing the number of women scientists in astronomy. 

Burnell proposes three causes for the larger female representation in astronomy in certain countries: men perceive other subjects as more prestigious, leaving more opportunities open to women; people tend to live close to home so females are able to pass household tasks and child-rearing to their parents; and/or there exists a large population of individuals in lower economic brackets who can take on the roles of housekeeper and babysitter.

This set of societal factors sparks some discussion when applied to the United States. Astronomy does not seem less prestigious here than other careers, given the billions of tax-payer dollars being used to fund NASA and other research labs and the enthusiastic public response to such breakthroughs as the Event Horizon Telescope’s first picture of a black hole and the initial release of James Webb Space Telescope images. Also, the problematic wealth disparity in the US is keeping, if not increasing, the number of people living below the poverty line. However, Americans do move around a lot. According to a 2008 Pew Research study, only about 37% of Americans have never moved outside their hometown (2). This, in addition to the sticky problem of inertia, could help explain the US's dismal percentages.

From the conversations during the Q & A, it seems that Burnell's drive to increase female participation in physics/astronomy at least partially stems from personal experience. In 1969, after she graduated from the University of Cambridge with her PhD in astronomy, her career became somewhat unstable. She said, "I was moving because my husband was moving his job to different parts of the country. And a job would come up somewhere and he’d say if I went for a job in this place, is there any astronomy place anywhere nearby. And [if] I’d say no [then] he wouldn’t apply or if I said yes, he would apply. If he got that job, I then had to write a begging letter to that astronomy place to see if they would give me a part-time job because I was looking after after a child as well." It's clear that she had sacrificed her own career for her family. Though she was still very successful, holding fellowships and teaching positions at various universities and doing research in almost every waveband, this succession of temporary jobs was not ideal and, when asked for advice for young women in astronomy who might be going through similar experiences, she told them to "hang in there," that though her CV did not look great with this set of part-time jobs, she really did enjoy the work and that being a part of a field in which one is passionate about in any capacity is rewarding.

In addition to family obligations, when asked to tell a story of her major discovery—how it happened and what happened afterwards—she took the opportunity to talk about her battle with imposter syndrome. "Until I went to Cambridge, I had been in the north and west of the United Kingdom," she said, "which is the mountainous part of the [country] and considered by the typical southern English to be even and uncultured. [When I got to Cambridge], I [decided] they’ve made a mistake admitting me. That they would discover their mistake and they will throw me out. We now have a name for this. It’s called imposter syndrome. […] And I suffered that badly when I came to Cambridge." But she adopted the policy that until they threw her out, she would work her very hardest so that, when they did throw her out, she wouldn’t have a guilty conscience. "I’d known I’d done my best," she said, "and I just wasn’t bright enough for Cambridge. So I was being really really thorough, and that was how I came to spot the pulsars." Her story was incredibly inspiring and invited a resounding applause from the audience.

At the conclusion of the talk, Burnell spoke on how those in roles of authority – for example, senior scientists or program administrators - can play a role in making astronomy a more equitable field. She encouraged them to collect statistics: on the gender balance of applicants, of who gets invited to interview at the university, and so forth. "Data," she said, "speaks to scientists." One can use these statistics to evaluate for bias in recruitment or retention, and from there, take steps to ameliorate the situation.

References
(1) https://ras.ac.uk/awards-and-grants/awards/gold-medal-a
(2) https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/12/17/who-moves-who-stays-put-wheres-home/