Adventures of a woman in science

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part describes the difficulties encountered in entering the scientific profession and staying there if one is a woman; the difficulties in combating the degrading sterotypes about women that are commonly held (women are believed to be submissive, unintelligent, uncreative, etc.); and the discrimination that accompanies beliefs in these sterotypes. The second part of the paper examines the evidence for the truth or falsity of the proposition that these stereotypes reflect woman's "innate" nature, and shows that there is no evidence to suggest that the proposition is true. On the other hand, there is evidence from social psychology that, for the most part, people act the way people around them expect them to act, and they believe that they are what others expect them to be. So if the scientific profession holds the outragious and erroneous belief that women can't be scientists, it is likely that few women will become scientists. This must change: the integrity of the progession is at stake.