Term Paper on "Big Can Sometimes Be Very, Very Small"

Term Paper 10 pages (2895 words) Sources: 25 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Big Can Sometimes Be Very, Very Small

The stereotypical idea of progress tends to be "the bigger, the better." Or at least it has been. But in the past decade nanotechnology -- the art and science of the nearly impossibly small -- has become increasingly important as the potential uses for very small tools have become increasingly apparent. Between fifteen and twenty new nanotechnological products are released into the marketplace each week.

This brave new small world offers both traditional barriers and novel opportunities to women entering the workforce -- as well as women who may be marking a career change.

This sounds contradictory at best -- and frankly quite likely actually impossible. But it remains true, both in Switzerland as well as across Europe. The traditional barriers are obvious: Women remain under-represented in science and technology as professional fields for a number of reasons, including a lack of confidence on the part of women that they can compete in these fields, lack of preparation in school for such fields by girls (who are often discouraged from taking math and science courses), and general lack of social support for women entering these fields. This lack of support can extend to those who do the hiring at high-tech firms.

There are a number of feedback loops in this system in which women are discouraged from competing in high-tech fields, and this discouragement on all levels reinforces women's hesitancy to enter into high-tech fields -- or to push their way through initial resistance that they may meet.

It is important to note here that while the above might sound as a condemnation of women for their hesitancy it is anything but. While Switzerland is free of formal legal and institutional barriers to women's entering any field that they like, there are still significant cultural, social, and psychological barriers to their entering high-tech fields. It is only natural for anyone considering what career path to take to enter into a field in which they will feel welcome. This has not been the case for women in technological and scientific fields over the past several decades in fields such as pharmacological research.

However, even as these factors work against women entering and succeeding in high-tech realms, there is a significant counterforce in some technological fields that serves to help women: Any new professional field has fewer of the old structural restraints and barriers than do established fields. The newer the field, the fewer established institutional barriers exist to women. This latter fact makes the field of nanotechnology relatively welcoming to women -- among the most welcoming of the newer technologies that are becoming increasingly important to the Swiss economy.

This does not mean that there are no barriers to women's entering into the field of nanotechnology in Switzerland or anywhere else given that it is a part of the technological business sector. However, there are established professionals in the field who are trying to make it easier for the next generation of women, in part because these veteran professionals recognize that nanotechnology -- with its huge future potential -- is an excellent entrance point for women into a scientific field. For example, there is a new multi-nation group -- WomenInNano -- that has formed to encourage women to enter the field by linking women entering the field with those who are established within it. This group may have collateral benefits for women in Switzerland or it may expand into Switzerland -- or a native Swiss group may rise up to fulfill the same functions.

Dr Annett Gebert from the Leibniz-Institute for solid state and materials research in Dresden is the coordinator for the project, and talked to CORDIS news. 'I am strongly involved in the scientific community. Our industry is dominated by males, at all levels, including decision-making, conference organisation, project funding, etc. We also feel that younger girls do not consider the natural sciences as a career path. Girls feel that they have no talent in this field, and we want to address this. After talking about this with colleagues, we decided to do something about it.'

The fact that women who already in the field of nanotechnology are willing to reach out to help other women entering the field -- even if such actions are still taking place in Switzerland on an informal basis -- should be an important consideration for women who wish to enter this subfield. Nanotechnology offers a way into the world of high-tech jobs (which in turn offer substantial intellectual as well as financial advantages for women) with at least a lower entrance fee than is generally charged to women attempting to enter into high-tech fields.

But while it is generally true that nanotechnology is more welcoming to women than more-established high-tech fields, the field is not uniformly gender-neutral or welcome to women. There are different subfields of nanotechnology because the field, while still extremely new, is well-enough established (and scientifically, technologically, and socially complicated) to have begun to give birth to internal divisions that require different types of workers. Some of these subfields are more welcoming to women in part at least because they offer jobs that require interdisciplinary approaches that women may find attractive.

Engineering and Social Engineering

One of the most important new subfields in nanotechnology that may attract women in (and into) the field (as well as, of course, men) is that of nanotoxicology, which is most generally the exploration of the ways in which substances composed of very small particles can have toxic effects on humans and other animals. This field may be especially attractive for many women -- although in saying this I am aware of the fact that I am trending a fine line between talking about new careers for women and traditional gender views of what is "appropriate" work for women -- because it focuses on what we might call (with apologies for using a cliche) the human condition. Nanotoxicology is a highly integrative field that allows for workers to combine the most advanced science and technology with a consideration for some of the most sophisticated and compelling medical questions.

Some researchers have found that one of the reasons that women do not seek out nanotechnology as a career (in addition to the reasons that I have already cited, such as lack of role models for young women in science and discouragement by educators who steer girls into non-science classes) is that it seems "soulless."

This assessment of the field of nanotechnology by young workers considering pursuing a career in this field probably arises at least on large part as a result of the fact that the majority of the day-to-day work done in nanotechnology firms is technological rather than scientific in nature. There is nothing, of course, wrong in technological work. However, it provides relatively little in terms of intellectual challenge (as opposed to science) or social connectedness.

As noted above, I am not presuming that all women are interested in fields that offer the possibility of furthering social concerns -- or that many men are not so inclined. However, a number of researchers into the field, especially those that examine new trends in hiring, have found that women entering the field are often attracted to the corners of the field in which science, technology, and social concerns intersect.

One of the most important of these areas is that of nanotoxicology. While nanotechnology can be seen as existing at the conjunction of science and technology, nanotoxicology can be seen as occupying an even more complicated nexus -- that created by environmental concerns, science, technology, and the role of all of these within democratic forms of governance.

Nanotoxicology

Global warming has taught us two important lessons. The first of these is the particular atmospheric chemical consequences of the Industrial Revolution. The second, more general lesson, is that every technological advance must be paid for. In the world of technology perhaps more than any other area of human endeavor there is never a free lunch. This is no less true in the field of nanotechnology than in any other technological field. There are an increasing number of jobs in this field, and they offer to job-seekers a fascinating amalgam of science, technology, and social questions.

To understand the field of nanotoxicology, one must understand something about the ways in which nanoparticles -- particles that have a diameter of less than 100 nm -- are produced. There are clear connections between the ways in which particles are produced and the potential harm that they pose to humans (as well as other lifeforms). There are three basic kinds of nanoparticles that nanotoxicologists will come across. There are naturally occurring nanoparticles -- such as those that occur in the wake of volcanic eruptions. There are nanoparticles that occur as the result of combustion, some of which are natural (such as those that occur during a forest fire). Still others are the result of the new technologies

There are two distinct reasons why… READ MORE

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