A DIFFERENT QUESTION

Much is being written about the underrepresentation of women in the IITs, and Nanopolitan has done some quite gruelling analysis of the whole matter. However, the original question was related to judging the caliber of the JEE and whether it has any inherent bias against women. However, the lack of women in the IITs can at least in theory be explained by several factors not related to the JEE, and one of those factors certainly could be the "culture" in the IITs.

So the question is, is the culture in IIT such that it may be biased against women? While such a question is surely bound to raise some hackles, let me hasten and add that an affirmative answer to this question would not reflect negatively on any particular gender. The point is, there are many institutions and fields which have been male dominated, and while that says something critical about the institution, it does not necessarily say anything bad about the individuals comprising it.

Questions whose answers may involve any accusation of bias for or against a particular gender are always considered uncomfortable. But I ask this question only because I am familiar with another hotly-debated topic; the underrepresentation of women in science. When this topic is brought up, we are inevitably reminded of Lawrence Summers's unfortunate comments that sparked a storm. But sometime back, I had written a post about a Nature article in which the author talked about the fierce "alpha male" culture that exists in science, that has made science traditionally a man's game. There was no accusation in that article, and yet I agreed with its premises. Science has been a man's game, there can be a lot of vituperative criticism and aggressiveness inherent in scientific competition and meetings. Essentially because of historical circumstances, women unfortunately have been dissuaded from a lot of scientific research.

Sometimes, observation trumps a lot of hypothesizing, and one thing I have to say is that for some reason, I have seldom seen even very intelligent girls trying to diligently get through the JEE. Exceptions abound of course, but within my acquaintances, I can think of very few girls who were first in their class (or in the city, state etc.), had the mettle to beat the male competition and get into the best engineering colleges in the country, but did not even appear for the JEE. So irrespective of the reasons, I think that there is something that keeps a lot of girls away from the JEE. One simple factor which comes to mind, and this is in fact true for boys too, is that parents sometimes balk at the thought of sending their son or daughter away to a far away place like Kanpur or Kharagpur. Another factor, and this is something a friend of mine told me, is that with predominantly boys appearing for the JEE, it is difficult for girls to form a study group.

Anyway, this is my take on it. But the men and women of the IITs can enlighten things more for me. I definitely think that traditionally, the IITs have always been perceived as a man's game, quite apart from whether that perception makes sense or is true, and this in its various implications and manifestations has kept girls way from the IITs, and consequently from the JEE. Things may change in the future, and they emphatically should.