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More Cracked Than Shattered
Are women being repressed in their scientific pursuits? The presence last month of a standing-room-only audience of more than 400 women (and perhaps a half-dozen men) in an NIH auditorium testified to the pertinence of the question at a Women's Equality Day program on the issue of "Shattering the Glass Ceiling." Several members of the audience offered anecdotes of personal encounters of barriers to equal employment facing women at NIH. Program moderator Diane Armstrong, director of NIH's Division of Equal Opportunity, offered some numbers to back up their stories: Women constitute 81 percent of the lower-ranking (GS 7-9) employees at NIH, but only 14 percent of the agency's elite Senior Executive Service. "I don't think I've shattered the ceiling," said panelist Yvonne Maddox,...