The Exclusion Effect: How the Sciences Discourage Girls & Women & What to do about it

by Kirsty Duncan

As a newly minted PhD in medical geography, Kirsty Duncan led an international expedition to remote Svalbard, Norway to search for the cause of the deadly 1918 influenza. What should have been a rewarding intellectual adventure turned out to be an unwanted baptism into the unbridled sexism and privilege of the scientific community. Ever since, she has devoted herself to the support of girls and women in scientific endeavours.
While women have come a long way in science, there is still far to go. They remain under-represented, under-paid, under-published, and under the shadows of male scientists who are assumed, without evidence, to have innate capacities that women lack. Duncan identifies systemic biases in the assessment of girls’ abilities and the teaching of science in the home, the classroom, our communities, and professional life. She makes a powerful argument for cultural and institutional change to ensure girls and women their rightful place in the scientific community.
For readers of Melinda Gates’s The Moment of Lift, Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women, and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures.

262 pages, Hardcover

Published September 3, 2024

Reviews

[Enid Wray]

There is nothing wrong with this per se, but…

I read the first three chapters closely, then skimmed the rest - so did I finish it? Or did I DNF it? I’ll go with DNF…

I don’t think I learned anything new here, though some of the data/statistics she refers to really are pretty stunning - and depressing - in this day and age. It reminds me that no matter how far we’ve come, there is such a long way to go… how slowly the dial really changes. That for every ‘girl’ like me who had the opportunities, there are multitudes out there who are still denied those very same.

This reads like a TED Talk, or like a series of lectures. All in all it just feels ‘light’ - like she is still really only skimming the surface. I wanted stories - which I got in the first chapter. But after that, all I got were statistics, and more statistics… and pithy platitudes periodically punctuating (how’s that for alliteration!) the text. Not enough.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital copy. Apologies for the delay in getting this post up.

DNF

[Stephanie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book quite interesting and well researched. I would say it’s a great collection of the facts of the current state of affairs and not much of a how-to book. There’s nothing groundbreaking in here. There is however, a lot to make me angry at the patriarchy.

[Emma Webb-Mueller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for class… good but repetitive
Author is def a slay queen though