AAPPS-APCTP Joint Forum on Women In Physics

Women are severely underrepresented in physics and engineering, which require a strong physics background. AAPPS Working Group on Women in Physics (WGWIP) was formed at the AAPPS 16^th Council Meeting in Osaka, April, 2006 with the mission of playing a leading role to promote women in Asia Pacific region. In commemoration of the establishment of AAPPS WGWIP and the 10^th Anniversary of Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP), AAPPS-APCTP Joint Forum on Women in Physics was held on November 17, 2006 at the APCTP headquarter in Pohang, Korea. Physicist leaders in Asia Pacific regions gathered to discuss the current situation in each member country of AAPPS and develop networks for promoting equal participation of men and women in physics in the region.

At the opening ceremony, there were many distinguished participants including Professor Tsong, the President of AAPPS,, Professor Nguyen van Hieu, Chairman of Board of Trustees of APCTP , Professor Won Namkung, Standing Trustee of APCTP, Professor Peter Fulde, Director of Max Planck Institute of Physics of Complex Systems, Professor Ushioda, IUPAP President Elect, , Professor Chae-Ok Kim, President of the Korean Physical Society, Professor Zheong G. Khim, President Elect of the Korean Physical Society, Professor Michiji Konuma, Special Advisor of AAPPS, and Professor Heisook Lee, President of Korean Federation of Women's Science and Technology Associations. In particular Professor Tsong, the President of AAPPS gave a very stimulating congratulating remark (see the attachment I). Also Professor Namkung, the Standing Trustee of APCTP Professor Namkung, the President of Korean Physical Society Professor Chae Ok Kim, President of Korean Federation of Women's Science and Technology Associations Professor Heisook Lee gave congratulating remarks.

Professor Marcia Barbosa, Chair of the Working Group on Women in Physics of the IUPAP gave a talk under the title “IUPAP: Women in Physics”. Professor Barbosa talked about the present status of under-representation of women in physics based upon the IUPAP survey done in 2002 and 2005: the percentage of women in physics increases less than in other science fields and women in physics do not reach top level. There are misleading myths such as that women do not lke physics and women can not do math, which becomes an obstacle in promoting women physicists. In order to promote women in physics, it is suggested that gathering statistics, forming working groups, site visits, keeping women in physics, and bringing women back.

Professor Youngah Park gave a talk under the title “ Advancing Women in Physics in Korea and Asia Pacific Region: Networking and International Collaboration”. Professor Park talked about JPS member survey in 2001 and KPS member survey in 2005. The activities of Women in Physics Committee of KPS was introduced including Physics Camp for High School Girl Students. As an international collaboration project for promoting women physicists in the Asia Pacific region, a gender desegregated survey in the Asia Pacific region for both male and female physicists was suggested to have more comprehensive data in the region. Developing a girl friendly physics education curriculum, promoting funding for women physicists in developing countries, founding prize for excellent women physicists in the region were also suggested.

Professor Ling-An Wu talked under the title “Changing Prospects of Women Physicists in China”. As one of the rapidly developing economic countries. New problems arise as social conditions fluctuate In China: It is mentioned that the total number of women in physics research and faculty positions has not changed much, but the ratio in top positions is decreasing. Discrimination against women is increasing whereas the number of women graduate students is increasing and the number of women awarded research grants is increasing slowly. Much still needs to be done to help women enter top positions in research and university in China.

Professor Eiko Torikai gave a talk with the titile “Harvest of International and Asian Networking on Women in Physics : Attract Girls into Physics” Professor Torikai emphasized the international collaboration to promote gender equality. For example JPS survey in 2001 became a protocol for the KPS member survey in 20005. In particular, “Summer School for High School Girls – for Scientists and Engineers of tomorrow,” was started by learning at APPC 2004 Round Table on Women in Physics that KPS successfully organized physics camp for high school girls to attract girls into physics, and was mentioned as a meaningful harvest of Asian networking on women in physics.

Panelists for the panel discussion are as follows: Secretary of AAPPS Professor Ching-Ray Chang, General Affairs Secretary of KPS, Professor Jeong-Weon Wu, Honorary Registrar of Australian Institute of Physics Professor Peter Johnston. The brief summaries panelists are attached. There were many questions and comments from the floor. Participant can understand that there are similarities and difference in each member society’s situation on the status of women physicist. We could pursuit a common strategy to promote women physicists to the leading position and the international collaboration and networking was emphasized through the forum.

AAPPS-APCTP Joint Forum on Women in Physics will be a landmark in raising the gender issue among the member physical societies of the Asia Pacific region. Continuous effort in each member society will be required to realize gender-equal participation in physics.

Attachment I: AAPPS-APCTP Joint Forum on Women in Physics-Program

Attachment II : An Opening Speech by the AAPPS President Professor Tien T. Tsong

A fundamental principle of democratic societies is all human beings are created equal. As human rights are concerned, there should be no distinction between females and males. Holding a job of one’s choice in accordance with one’s ability and desire is a basic human right! Science is no exception. You have come a long way! In human history, in most societies, females were dominated by the physically more powerful males. Only in the last two centuries, under the earlier great sacrifices and strives of woman right pioneers, women can start to enjoy some equal right. But because of the persistent old human values and social infrastructures, females are still not really enjoying true equality.

Attachment III: : Summary of Panel Discussion

1) Panelist: Jeong Weon Wu, General Affairs Secretary of the Korean Physical Society

The Korean Physical Society(KPS) sent delegations to the forum of "Women in Physics" hosted by International Union of Physics and Applied Physics, which was held at Paris in the year of 2002. In the forum, we found that European countries as well as USA are treating the issue of "Women in Physics" as a means of availing the female human resources in restructuring the social structuring to make each country more competitive in the 21st century. This inspired us to initiate the organization of " Women in Physics Committee in KPS, which was formally launched in the year of 2002 as a regular committee in the organization of KPS. Among professional societies in Korea, KPS is pioneering in bringing up the affirmative action. Through this effort combined with other initiatives, the Ministry of Education in Korea made a regulation that 20% of the 1,000 new faculty members in national university should be female. Since the physics department usually has the lowest ratio of female to male faculty members, this regulation helped women physics Ph.D.'s get hired as junior professors at the national universities.

Since the birth rate of Korea (1.17 children) is the lowest in the world, it is very important to main-stream the female human resources. Furthermore, the knowledge-based society requires to educate and bring up highly professional work forces. In Korea, there are efforts in the Congress to implement an affirmative action in various areas, in particular, the research institutes of science and technology. In addition, KPS puts a lot of efforts in renovating the education of physics at class rooms of the middle and high schools. For example, the traditional way of introducing the concept of "force”, momentum”, "energy", and "electricity" etc should be changed to a way more related to day-life experiences. Furthermore, the examples to explain the concept can be more girl-friendly. In the future, the professional scientific societies of Korea in each subject field such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology should put efforts together in addressing the issue of "Women in Science.”

2) Panelist Peter Johnston, Honorary Registrar of Australian Institute of Physics

The main large initiative of the Australia Institute of Physics is the AIP Women in Physics Lecturer. Details are at http://www.aip.org.au/content/wiplecturer including the last 10 lecturers and with links to their CVs. This is an honored role in our Institute and each lecturer is presented with a medal to celebrate their contribution. Prof Helen Quinn, former President of the APS was 2005 lecturer and Prof. Deb Kane is the current lecturer. Dr Cathy Foley would become President of the AIP in February 2007.

Girl numbers are significantly reduced in High School. In Australia, girls do better in single sex schools, and boys to worse in single sex schools from an educational perspective. In Australia, larger departments seem to have higher proportions of female students due to with better group support networks. It was mentioned the WiP session at the 2005 Australian National Congress and mentioned a preference going forward for networking sessions. He also spoke about the reluctance to embrace targets, using an analogy with problems with the Kyoto protocol and its targets. Many eminent economists have rejected Kyoto because it does not contain measures to change behaviour. Emission trading schemes are likely to be preferred by many because they include the cost of polluting with CO2 in the cost of energy usage. The question for us is how do we set up the mechanism that makes gender equity good economic sense?

3) Panelist Ching-Ray Chang, Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

“ Broken Symmetry of Physicists: The role of Female Physicists in Asia”

One of the beauties in Nature is symmetry. The symmetry can be exact, approximate, or broken. Symmetry breaking always provides interesting phenomena in Physics, and explicit and spontaneous symmetry breaking are quite different in nature.

The beauty of the world is mostly from the symmetry and harmony between the man and woman. Women have contributed to science for a long time, but their efforts have often not been recognized. Since the Nobel Prize was issued at 1900, only two female Physicists were awarded: Marie Sklodowska Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. Women are definitely under-represented in physics. The symmetry is definitely broken and thus interesting phenomena of woman in Physics deserved to be investigated. A lot of questions can be raised: Why both Curie and Mayer were originally from East Europe? Why the ratio of male and female in Physics is unreasonable? Is the symmetry breaking between the man and woman in sciences spontaneously? The last question actually is not too difficulty to answer. It is obviously that many bright young female students do not get the equal chance to learn about physics; moreover they are discouraged from their friends during the career in the Physics. The pipeline for female Physicists is not only leaky but also full of invisible bottlenecks. At my undergraduates, most distinguished students in my class are female. Thirty years passed, my female classmates are all shy away even though most of them did get their PhD in Physics. The symmetry breaking for woman in Physics must be from the explicit reasons.

Since the broken symmetry in Physicists is very significant, it forces people to ponder the basic reasons of lacking the feminine scientists. Is the problem from the female or the science has problems? The situation is much serious in Asia. The Asian women are not allowed to be well educated until last century. Most women are trained to follow “Three rules for will and four feminine virtues”. They should obey their father’s will at maiden, after marriage, they should follow the will of their husband. If their husband died, they are still required obeying their son’s will. They need to be perfect on four virtues: morality, house jobs, expressions and behaviors. An old doctrine for women in Chinese, “the female incapacity is a morality” concludes the status of female before 20 century.

Nature is discovered and described by human; however, the human imaginations are bounded by their culture and can not detach from history. Modern sciences, generally refers to the science which was initiated in 16th century and further development from Europe. The woman even can not be well educated in Asia till last century; therefore, the momentum is not strong enough to get rid of the explicit factors of symmetry breaking. Man dominated the history of sciences; in a way Nature was possibly partial and incomplete interpretation. The simple and beauty of nature was only defined from the man’s view. However, the complexity of the nature already shows its power on diversity. Lacking of feminine special characteristics, e.g., dedicated, careful and flexibility are not easy to understand the complex system. The carefulness will discover the hidden facts within the complexity. We should add more female flavors to describe the nature and to recover the beauty of symmetry. This century we definitely need more female scientists to make the Nature become more natural.

To remove the explicit barriers for the female physicists need collective efforts. The working group of woman in Physics at AAPPS is only a first step to identify the explicit barriers. We need to take special actions to overcome the barriers and only with equality of gender in science, the Nature can then be properly described. The world will be furthered benefited from the harmony of human beings and sciences will make dramatic progresses with the fully involvement of the other gender.