学物理的女生增多
by Yan
听到过不少次，讲近些年学物理的女生又多起来，今天看到了“官方”证实，呵呵。中科院物理所网站上有这样一篇稿子：更多的中华女性投身物理 [More Chinese Women engaged in physics]，是三八节那天贴出来的。说 2005年，物理所的研究生中，女生占了30%。而中科院研究生院，女生占了25%。这是不小的比例了。文中提到70年代初的辉煌，女生比例达三分之一；到了90年代，物理系女生比例降到了10%以下（正是俺上大学的时候哇）。
学物理的女生增多，是否意味着将来女性物理学家教授会增多呢？文中说，还是不大乐观。女性的学术生涯遇到更多困难，文中提到：
“I don’t think there is any discrimination against us women,” cited Professor JIN Kuijuan, one of the few women senior-researchers of the Institute of Physics in Beijing. “Under-representation of women in physics is rather a problem of physics itself, and lies in the distinctions between men and women. Physics becomes a highly competitive field today. For everybody, man or woman, an interruption in career for a while may imply retreating from the research frontier forever. But the early- and mid-career periods (roughly up to 35 years old) overlap the golden times for a woman who has to finish the transition from a young girl to a responsible, caring mother. How can we expect girls in love and young women in pregnancy or holding a small baby in arms to equally concentrate on physics as their male colleagues do? Even after giving birth, a woman has to devote more time to the family, which unavoidably disadvantages her competition for senior position. Many promising women are then steered out of physics.”
女性参与对科学有什么好处呢？
Women participation profits science in various aspects: They not only provide more intuitions into the problems with their precious brains of other nature and contribute to laboratory works that require extraordinary dexterity and patience, but simply a healthy working environment of mixed genders is also beneficial.
最后一句就是俗话说的，男女搭配，干活不累 :D。文中说，已经采取相关措施，让更多女性以物理作为职业生涯。包括：申请基金时的优待；雇用时女士优先，等等。
