tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/gender-bias-in-academia-14844/articlesGender bias in academia – The Conversation2022-12-09T07:12:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1960272022-12-09T07:12:04Z2022-12-09T07:12:04ZNew study reveals gender bias in sport research. It’s yet another hurdle to progress in women’s sport<p>Throughout history, sports have been guilty of prioritising certain groups at the exclusion of others. There has been a pervasive idea that being an athlete requires the demonstration of traditionally masculine traits. Any individual not doing so was, and often still is, susceptible to being harassed, sidelined, or ostracised.</p>
<p>Indeed, femininity has historically been considered nonathletic. Research finds some athletes describe a perception that being a “woman” and an “athlete” are almost <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:SERS.0000018888.48437.4f">opposing identities</a>.</p>
<p>For these reasons and more, women’s sport has been held back in ways that men’s sport has not. While progress is certainly now being made, our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2022.2150981">new research</a>, published this week, finds large gender gaps persist in sports research.</p>
<p>We found sport psychology research studies – which inform the strategies athletes use to reach peak performance – have predominantly used male participants. </p>
<p>For example, across the sport psychology research we looked at between 2010 and 2020, 62% of the participants were men and boys. Further, around 22% of the sport psychology studies we examined had samples with only male participants. In contrast, this number was just 7% for women and girls.</p>
<p>Women may experience sport and exercise differently from men. As in other areas of medicine, an evidence base that’s predominately informed by men’s experiences and bodies will lead to insufficient, ineffective outcomes and recommendations for women.</p>
<h2>Some progress has been made</h2>
<p>Progress in women’s sport is evident, and continues every year. Gender gaps across recreational and professional sport are slowly narrowing. </p>
<p>Girls’ involvement in sport continues to grow, with the number participating in high school sports in the United States <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00913847.2020.1852861?journalCode=ipsm20">increasing by 262% between 1973 and 2018</a>. In Australia, participation in sport among women and girls between 2015-2019 <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspor.2021.710666/full">grew at a faster rate than among men and boys</a>.</p>
<p>Improved opportunity and exposure has also occurred in professional settings, and public interest has increased significantly. For example, the 2020 Women’s Cricket World Cup saw attendance records tumble, with the final played at the MCG in front of <a href="https://mcg.org.au/whats-on/latest-news/2020/march/records-tumble-as-australia-claims-icc-womens-t20-world-cup">86,174 fans</a>.</p>
<p>Many sports now enter a complex new era of professionalisation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-afl-has-consistently-put-the-womens-game-second-is-it-the-best-organisation-to-run-aflw-180665">as we’re seeing in AFLW</a>.</p>
<p>Despite positive trends, critical issues remain.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tokyo-olympics-are-billed-as-the-first-gender-equal-games-but-women-still-lack-opportunities-in-sport-165280">The Tokyo Olympics are billed as the first gender equal Games, but women still lack opportunities in sport</a>
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<h2>Gender bias in research</h2>
<p>Any growth in women’s sport must be supported by the underlying evidence base that informs it.</p>
<p>As mental health researchers in the field of elite sport, we aim to make real-world impacts through rigorous applied research. Our team has previously explored gendered mental health experiences among elite athletes, finding women report more significant symptoms of mental ill-health and <a href="https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/7/1/e000984">more frequent negative events like discrimination or financial hardship</a>.</p>
<p>Research like this is critical for informing the services and systems which support peak performance. But the research has to represent its target, or else progress will be limited.</p>
<p>It’s now well understood that the field of medical and scientific research is rife with examples of the ways in which unequal participation by gender has caused negative health effects. With men’s experiences and bodies <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1115616">considered the norm</a>, inaccurate understanding of causes, tools, and treatments have been frequent.</p>
<p>Medical and scientific research in sport is not exempt.</p>
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<h2>Our findings</h2>
<p>As sports become increasingly competitive and pressurised, sport psychology is critical to supporting athletes within these high-stress environments.</p>
<p>Following concerns about gender bias in scientific research, we wanted to understand whether the field of sport and exercise psychology was appropriately representative.</p>
<p>We recorded the gender of study participants across research published in key sport and exercise psychology journals in 2010, 2015 and 2020, to estimate gender balance over the last decade. This included studies on topics such as: physical and mental health, personality and motivation, coaching and athlete development, leadership, and mental skills.</p>
<p>Across more than 600 studies and nearly 260,000 participants, there were significant levels of gender imbalance.</p>
<p>This imbalance varied, depending on the area being investigated. While sport psychology research focuses on performance and athletes, exercise psychology is more focused on areas of health and participation. Our findings showed that the likelihood of including male rather than female participants in sport psychology studies was almost four times as high as for exercise psychology.</p>
<p>We also identified that those studies which specifically explored themes relating to performance (such as coaching, mental skills, or decision-making) all featured samples with fewer women and girls, as compared to those focused on topics like health, well-being, or activism. </p>
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<h2>What our findings mean</h2>
<p>Our findings, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.2021-0028">along with those of others</a>, hint at a number of worrying conclusions.</p>
<p>Women and girls in sport are likely to be instructed in strategies and approaches informed by research that does not sufficiently represent them.</p>
<p>Among many factors, topics like coaching methods, injury management, and performance psychology are critical to sports performance. For some or all of these, women athletes’ experiences may differ from those of men.</p>
<p>Changes to policy have made a significant difference to gender equity in sport. But researchers and funding bodies must follow suit, ensuring we develop the understanding and methods to properly represent all groups we seek to serve. Only then can women’s sport truly flourish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Courtney Walton receives funding through a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Melbourne. He advises a number of elite sports codes and organisations nationally.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Gao receives salary support from the Department of Health, State Government of Victoria for unrelated projects. She is an investigator on projects funded by NHMRC, NIH, HCF and MRFF. She is affiliated with Orygen and Monash University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Rice receives funding from the NHMRC, MRFF and The University of Melbourne. He advises a number of elite sports codes and organisations internationally.</span></em></p>Sport and exercise psychology research studies – which inform the strategies athletes use to reach peak performance – have predominantly used male participants.Courtney C Walton, Research Fellow & Psychologist, Mental Health in Elite Sports, The University of MelbourneCaroline Gao, Senior Research Fellow, Biostatistician, Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of MelbourneSimon Rice, Associate Professor & Clinical Psychologist, Mental Health in Elite Sports, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1784182022-03-07T19:07:03Z2022-03-07T19:07:03ZGender bias in student surveys on teaching increased with remote learning. What can unis do to ensure a fair go for female staff?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450252/original/file-20220307-83249-11lx8dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5607%2C3732&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gender bias against female academics increased in student evaluations of teaching during remote learning, particularly among male students, <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss1/10/">our research</a> published today shows. This bias could have impacts on female academics’ leadership and career opportunities, and on their confidence and well-being. Based on our research, we make four recommendations to counter gender bias in teaching evaluations and its impacts.</p>
<p>In early 2020, universities across Australia moved all teaching online due to the spread of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns. Academics had to learn very quickly how to teach online and assist their students with online learning. The shift meant teaching moved from the neutral territory of the university classroom into the more private space of the home. </p>
<p>This has had many consequences for academics, particularly women who were also caring for children.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lose-some-weight-stupid-old-hag-universities-should-no-longer-ask-students-for-anonymous-feedback-on-their-teachers-173911">'Lose some weight', 'stupid old hag': universities should no longer ask students for anonymous feedback on their teachers</a>
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<p>Academics regularly have their teaching performance monitored. This is most often done through student evaluation of teaching. The surveys used for this purpose continued during 2020. </p>
<p>The surveys record student judgement of teacher quality, resources and subject design. Many problems have been identified with institutional reliance on this evaluation measure. These problems include relatively low response rates – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209749">often 30% or less</a> – and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2021.1895093">subjective nature of student perceptions</a> of teaching quality. These perceptions are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1888075">influenced by teachers’ gender and race</a>, with some comments in an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2021.2012643?journalCode=caeh20">Australian study</a> qualifying as “hate speech”. </p>
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<p>Yet universities continue to rely heavily on student evaluations in monitoring teaching quality. They also use them for individual academic performance management, including promotion.</p>
<h2>What did the study find?</h2>
<p><a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss1/10/">Our research</a>, published in a special Women & Leadership issue of the Journal of University Learning & Teaching Practice, analysed more than 22,000 de-identified scores from student evaluations of teaching and over 8,000 de-identified student comments. The data came from surveys in 2019 (face-to-face teaching) and 2020 (remote teaching) that evaluated teaching staff in a multidisciplinary college at Victoria University, Melbourne. All surveys were from first-year students across all disciplines and courses.</p>
<p>There were no differences in student evaluation scores between male and female lecturers or between in-person and remote teaching. But our analysis found a difference in the comments. </p>
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<img alt="Female lecturer standing at the front of a university class" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450257/original/file-20220307-84100-domzlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">There were no differences in students’ scoring of male and female lecturers in 2019 and 2020, but there was a clear difference in the comments.</span>
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<p>Most comments from both male and female students were positive about both male and female teachers. These comments mostly emphasised that students recognised and appreciated their teachers’ efforts during the massive and rapid shift to online learning in 2020. </p>
<p>Negative comments were in the minority (7% for each year). However, the students making these comments disproportionately targeted female academics for negative commentary about attitude, irrespective of students’ gender or the mode of delivery. </p>
<p>During remote learning, there were more negative comments about female academics’ teaching style, particularly from male students with a 30 percentage point increase in comments by male students from 2019. Typical examples of such comments by male students about female teachers included:</p>
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<p>“She had no idea.”</p>
<p>“Concepts were not fully explained and key concepts were left out.”</p>
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<p>Female academics were also more often the targets of negative comments on teachers’ ease with the video conferencing software, such as: </p>
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<p>“She struggled more than my other teachers on Zoom.” </p>
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<p>Comments about the domestic environment while teaching online were in a minority. But these comments were directed at female academics only, such as this one by a female student.</p>
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<p>“It was distracting when her child would interrupt her.” </p>
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<h2>Why does this gender bias matter?</h2>
<p>During COVID-19 lockdowns, the burden of caring for children fell disproportionately to women throughout Australia, as the Australian Institute of Family Studies <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/publications/families-australia-survey-life-during-covid-19">has shown</a>. It was no different for academic women. Should they be penalised for it?</p>
<p>Academic women are also more likely than their male peers to suffer from <a href="https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/experiencing-imposter-syndrome-academia-women/docview/2070929379/se-2?accountid=14844">imposter syndrome</a>. The negative gendered comments in student evaluations of their teaching could reinforce these anxieties. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-uni-teachers-were-already-among-the-worlds-most-stressed-covid-and-student-feedback-have-just-made-things-worse-162612">Our uni teachers were already among the world's most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse</a>
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<p>In a year when women’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01294-9">research outputs decreased</a> while men’s research outputs increased, an added concern is there may be an over-reliance on student evaluations for women academics who seek promotion.</p>
<h2>What can universities do to counter this bias?</h2>
<p>Given that universities still use these surveys for teacher promotion and performance evaluations, ways must be found to counter the effect of poor feedback from students that is so gendered and subjective. We recommend that:</p>
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<li><p>an amnesty applies to negative comments in data from student evaluations of teaching in 2020 and 2021 (due to COVID)</p></li>
<li><p>a guide is created and workshops run for people (line managers and members of promotions panels) reading student evaluation data to highlight their known gendered bias</p></li>
<li><p>implicit gender bias training for students be developed and cautionary information be added in the survey instructions to students</p></li>
<li><p>female academics who have encountered such negative feedback are given strategies on how to deal with it. These may include mental health training, sharing the purpose of the evaluation surveys and the feedback with students, focusing on the positive comments rather than the few negative ones, and citing the published research on bias in promotion applications.</p></li>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-uni-students-say-some-awful-things-in-teaching-surveys-so-how-can-we-use-them-to-improve-177155">Yes, uni students say some awful things in teaching surveys, so how can we use them to improve?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathy is a lecturer within the First Year College at Victoria University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Hall is employed by Victoria University. She has recieved funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Kelly and Natalie Kon-yu do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Comparing students’ comments on their teachers in in-person classes in 2019 and online classes in 2020, the one difference that stands out is the increase in bias against female lecturers.Kathy Tangalakis, Associate Professor of Physiology, Victoria UniversityDianne Hall, Professor of History, Victoria UniversityKate Kelly, Teaching Focused Academic, First Year College, Victoria UniversityNatalie Kon-yu, Senior Lecturer, Literature and Gender Studies, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1737242022-01-24T13:26:05Z2022-01-24T13:26:05ZMore women in a STEM field leads people to label it as a ‘soft science,’ according to new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441846/original/file-20220120-9679-19vyjxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=533%2C301%2C5844%2C4164&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How seriously people take particular scientific disciplines partly depends on how many women enter them.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/large-group-of-happy-college-students-celebrating-royalty-free-image/1175414396">skynesher/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>One factor that influences the use of the labels “soft science” or “hard science” is gender bias, according to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104234">recent research</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Qw6dPwUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_SS0alEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">colleagues</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=SK2z4YsAAAAJ">and I</a> conducted. </p>
<p>Women’s participation varies across STEM disciplines. While women have nearly reached gender parity in biomedical sciences, they still make up <a href="https://www.computerscience.org/resources/women-in-computer-science">only about 18% of students</a> receiving undergraduate degrees in computer science, for instance.</p>
<p>In a series of experiments, we varied the information study participants read about women’s representation in fields like chemistry, sociology and biomedical sciences. We then asked them to categorize these fields as either a “soft science” or a “hard science.”</p>
<p>Across studies, participants were consistently more likely to describe a discipline as a “soft science” when they’d been led to believe that proportionally more women worked in the field. Moreover, the “soft science” label led people to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104234">devalue these fields</a> – describing them as less rigorous, less trustworthy and less deserving of federal research funding.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Over the past decade, a growing movement has <a href="https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/the-stem-gap/">encouraged girls and women to pursue education and careers</a> in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. This effort is sometimes described as a way to reduce the wage gap. </p>
<p>By encouraging women to enter high-paying fields like science, technology and engineering, advocates hope that women on average will <a href="https://www.urban.org/2016-analysis/promote-stem-grade-school-fight-wage-gap-and-grow-economy">increase their earning power relative to men</a>. Others have hoped that, as women demonstrate they can be successful in STEM, <a href="https://sciencepolicyreview.org/2020/08/reducing-gender-bias-in-stem/">sexist stereotypes about women’s ability and interest in STEM</a> will erode.</p>
<p>Our research suggests this may not be the case. Stereotypes about women and STEM persist, even in the face of evidence that women can and do productively participate in STEM fields. These stereotypes can lead people to simply devalue the fields in which women participate. In this way, even science and math can end up in the “<a href="https://internationalwim.org/how-pink-collar-jobs-have-changed-since-1940/">pink collar</a>” category of heavily female fields that are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/low-pay-caring-industry-2014-2">often devalued and underpaid</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man at white board, two women facing him with microscopes in foreground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441848/original/file-20220120-9047-15poc0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">What does a ‘scientist’ look like in your mind’s eye?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teacher-talking-to-students-in-lab-royalty-free-image/500046159">ER Productions Limited/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Other research has found that explicit <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00415">“science equals men” stereotypes were weaker</a> among people who majored in science disciplines with high participation by women, like biological sciences, compared to those who majored in fields with few women, like engineering. This finding suggests that exposure to women in your own field can shift the gender stereotypes you hold. </p>
<p>But our studies more closely align with other research suggesting that, rather than reducing gender stereotyping, women’s increased participation results in the devaluation of more heavily female fields. </p>
<p>When women make up more than 25% of graduate students in a discipline, men – and to a lesser extent women – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/003804070708000102">become less interested in pursuing that discipline</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html">salaries tend to go down</a>. Other studies have found that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00354.x">same job is seen as deserving a lower salary</a> when positioned in a “female field” than when it is listed in a “male field.” Together, this suggests that the presence of women, and not characteristics of the job or field, is what leads to devaluation and lower pay.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Participants who worked or planned to work in science were just as likely as the rest of the population to use gender as a cue to categorize soft vs. hard sciences. But in scientists, we found no connection between that tendency and their beliefs about women’s ability in science and math. That is, scientists’ levels of sexism, as measured by self-report, were unrelated to their inclination to call fields with many women “soft sciences.”</p>
<p>We don’t know how scientists and non-scientists ended up making the same connection between gender and soft science labels. It’s possible that people who work in science are just more aware of norms against expressing such gender stereotypes – meaning their self-reports are less likely to reflect their true beliefs and actually more closely match those of non-scientists. </p>
<p>But it’s also possible that something else is driving their use of the “soft science” label. For example, to our surprise, women who worked in science were more likely compared to men in science to label fields with many women as “soft sciences.” This could reflect the tendency for some women who experience sexism in their fields to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.12.007">distance themselves from other women</a> as a way to protect themselves from being targets of sexism.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Science advocates must grapple with the fact that women’s work in scientific fields can result in fields being devalued. For society to benefit fully from the broad spectrum of scientific disciplines, advocates may need to address gender stereotypes more directly.</p>
<p>Gender stereotypes about STEM could also affect which fields talented students choose to pursue. The label of “soft science” might be a turnoff for high-achieving students who want to prove their strengths – or, conversely, students who are insecure about their abilities might avoid a major described as a “hard science.”</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alysson Light does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The proportion of women in a discipline influences how rigorous and trustworthy people rate the field overall, as well as whether they categorize a STEM field as a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ science.Alysson Light, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of the SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647442021-09-07T12:53:12Z2021-09-07T12:53:12ZWomen face motherhood penalty in STEM careers long before they actually become mothers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418715/original/file-20210831-21-tu1umn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=208%2C73%2C3850%2C2066&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women in Ph.D STEM programs say they were told they had to choose between family and career. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-female-microbiologist-studying-coronavirus-royalty-free-image/1224202939">janiecbros/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Unfounded assumptions about how motherhood affects worker productivity can harm women’s careers in science, technology, engineering and math long before they are – or even intend to become – mothers, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/08912432211006037">we found in a new study</a>. </p>
<p>It is well known that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see-uneven-progress-in-increasing-gender-racial-and-ethnic-diversity/">women are underrepresented</a> <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25585/promising-practices-for-addressing-the-underrepresentation-of-women-in-science-engineering-and-medicine">in the STEM workforce</a>, including in academia. For example, <a href="https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198">women constituted</a> only 20% of tenured professorships in the physical sciences and 15% in engineering in 2017, despite the fact that their share of doctoral degrees in those fields <a href="https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21321/report/field-of-degree-women">has increased substantially</a> in recent decades.</p>
<p>We wanted to understand what might be causing women to be more likely than their male peers to forgo science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers in academia. We conducted extensive interviews with 57 childless Ph.D. students and post-doctoral scholars – both men and women – in natural science and engineering programs at elite U.S. research universities. </p>
<p>The interviews covered a wide range of topics, including workplace experiences and relationships, personal background and career and family plans. Using the data obtained from the interviews, we analyzed gender differences in intentions to pursue a career as a professor after earning a doctorate. </p>
<p>We found that, upon entering the Ph.D. program, men and women were equally interested in working as a professor after finishing their degree. But, by the time of our interviews, women were twice as likely as men to say they had decided not to pursue a career as a professor after all. </p>
<p>Our analysis ruled out a variety of factors that might explain this gender pattern, such as the interviewee’s discipline, their partner’s career and their age. Instead, we found that women who had changed their minds about becoming a professor cited a workplace culture that assumes motherhood – but not fatherhood – is incompatible with an academic career. We dubbed this the “specter of motherhood.”</p>
<p>Several of the women we interviewed said their advisers explicitly told them they have to choose between an academic career and a family and that “there’s more to life than babies.” Women also said they experienced intense pressure to reject, denigrate or hide the mere possibility of motherhood for fear of no longer being taken seriously in the profession. Some went to great lengths, such as hiding medically dangerous miscarriages or strategically telling others that they didn’t intend to have children. </p>
<p>One student recounted how, at a panel on gender issues in STEM, a woman professor’s “gist was that having children is sort of narcissistic. And she’s above that … like, simpletons want to have kids.”</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2010.11.006">Research shows</a> that mothers in high-status, elite professions - ones that demand significant levels of training and long work hours - are no less committed or productive than fathers or childless peers. Yet inaccurate stereotypes persist and are a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1086/511799">critical source</a> of discrimination.</p>
<p>The irony is that, despite workplace cultures that can be hostile to motherhood, elite, often male-dominated, careers can be very favorable for parents – at least when it comes to overall levels of pay and access to benefits. The very things that make these jobs desirable in the first place – such as <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/equal_pay_issue_brief_final.pdf">high salaries</a>, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1111/josi.12012">flexible work hours</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1049-3867(00)00053-0">access to health insurance</a> and high-quality child care – also make them particularly supportive of parenting. </p>
<p>But if the culture of these workplaces pushes women out, it makes it doubly hard to challenge these damaging stereotypes. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>An outstanding question is the extent to which women in elite and male-dominated occupations that we did not study, like corporate law and finance, might be similarly affected by the “specter of motherhood.” </p>
<p><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691126432/selling-women-short">Some evidence</a> <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018167">suggests</a> that they are. </p>
<p>If the problem is pervasive across many industries and workplaces, targeted policies like improved child care or more flexible hours are important, but not enough. Leaders also need to proactively challenge the narrative that motherhood can’t coexist with success in an elite career.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164744/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New study finds that workplace hostility toward motherhood in STEM fields can deter even young, childless women from pursuing academic careers.Sarah Thebaud, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of California, Santa BarbaraCatherine Taylor, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1428742020-09-11T12:20:36Z2020-09-11T12:20:36ZWomen have disrupted research on bird song, and their findings show how diversity can improve all fields of science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356400/original/file-20200903-18-1mysw98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C2316%2C1535&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Female song is common among fairywrens, like this red-backed fairywren.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/XqFbHC">Paul Balfe/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans often idealize scientists as <a href="https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/PFoS-Perceptions-Science-America.pdf">unbiased, objective observers</a>. But scientists are affected by conscious and unconscious biases, just as people in other fields are. Studies of birds’ vocal behavior clearly show how research approaches can be affected by the people who do the work.</p>
<p>For more than 150 years, dating back at least to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Descent_of_Man_and_Selection_in_Rela/tvEEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=song">Charles Darwin’s writings on sexual selection</a>, scientists have generally considered bird song to be a male trait. The widely accepted view was that bird songs are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.53.1.37">long complex vocalizations produced by males</a> during the breeding season, whereas such vocalizations in females are <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bird_Song/sB24pLg4gywC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=catchpole+and+slater+bird+song+themes+and+variations+1995&printsec=frontcover">generally rare or abnormal</a>.</p>
<p>But over the past 20 years, research has shown that both males and females in many bird species sing, especially in the tropics. For example, our group has studied female song and male-female duets in <a href="https://ebird.org/species/ventro1">Venezuelan troupials</a>, a tropical species that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2016.00014">sings year-round to defend territories</a>. And we have studied female song in <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Bluebird/overview">eastern bluebirds</a>, a temperate species in which females <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arz130">sing to communicate with their mates</a> during the breeding season. </p>
<p>Recent findings have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4379">female song is widespread</a>, and it is likely that the ancestor of all songbirds had female song. Now, rather than asking why males originally evolved song, the question has become why both sexes originally evolved song, and why females have lost song in some species.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.07.021">recently published study</a>, we reviewed 20 years of research on female bird song and found that the key people driving this recent paradigm shift were women. If fewer women had entered this field, we believe that it likely would have taken much longer to reach this new understanding of how bird song originally evolved. We see this example as a powerful demonstration of why it’s important to increase diversity in all fields of science.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="14" data-image="" data-title="Male and female troupials duetting in Puerto Rico" data-size="235355" data-source="Karan Odom" data-source-url="" data-license="CC BY-ND" data-license-url="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2044/duet-pr20120403-kjo-r028-001006-pb02.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Male and female troupials duetting in Puerto Rico.
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karan Odom</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a><span class="download"><span>230 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2044/duet-pr20120403-kjo-r028-001006-pb02.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
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<h2>New voices lead to new perspectives</h2>
<p>Traditionally, white men working in countries of the Northern Hemisphere have conducted much of the research on bird song. Researchers in countries such as the U.S., Canada, England and Germany have focused much of their work on migratory birds that <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/natures-music/marler/978-0-12-473070-0">breed in the north temperate zone</a>. </p>
<p>But starting in the 1990s, new research began to contradict this view. Studies pointed out the bias toward temperate zones in previous work, and indicated that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(97)01241-X">in the tropics, females of many species are prolific singers</a>. Researchers began to study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1996.0022">how female birds use their songs</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-3454(03)33002-5">how females learn songs </a> and why females in some species join their mates to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-003-0741-x">sing precisely coordinated duets</a>. </p>
<p>We noticed that women had written many of the key papers on female song published in recent years and wondered whether this was a general trend. To see whether women were significantly more likely to publish about female bird song than men, we identified all papers with “female song” in the title or abstract that had been published in the last 20 years. Next we assembled a set of papers generally published in the same journals in the same years, but focused on “bird song” more broadly. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pair of Venezuelan troupials" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357524/original/file-20200910-18-1qvmclq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Male and female troupials. Both sexes are elaborately colored, and both sexes sing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karan Odom</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For each of these papers we determined the genders of all authors, including the first author, middle authors and final author. Final authors frequently are the senior authors – for example, research group leaders.</p>
<p>Focusing on first authors, we found that 68% of female song papers were written by women, whereas only 44% of the bird song papers were written by women. Therefore, men were 24% less likely to study female song than bird song. Conversely, women were 24% more likely to study female song.</p>
<p>Middle authors on female song papers were also slightly skewed toward women. However, last authors were much more commonly men for both female song and bird song papers. In other words, the team leaders on these projects were still more likely to be men. </p>
<p>For female song studies, 58% of last authors were men. In our view, although ornithology is now a relatively gender-balanced field, more women need to be promoted into senior leadership positions, so that they can lead key decisions on research directions, funding and student projects.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ph2dJIlqTs0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Female northern cardinals sing along with males and have many different calls.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Diverse perspectives help drive scientific progress</h2>
<p>A major goal of our study was to recognize and promote the diverse perspectives of researchers with different backgrounds and identities. However, we felt it was crucial for our study to look back at least 20 years, since that was the time frame over which this key paradigm shift occurred. Many authors from that far back would be difficult to contact directly for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>In the future, allowing authors to self-identify for studies of gender and authorship in a range of fields would likely produce more correct gender data and allow researchers to identify as nonbinary or non-gender-conforming.</p>
<p>Our case study on bird song provides dramatic evidence that who researchers are, where they are from and what experiences they have had influence the science that they do. More diverse groups of researchers may ask a broader range of questions, utilize more varied methods and tackle problems from a wider range of perspectives.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Gender is just one aspect of identity that could influence topics, conceptual approaches and specific methodologies used in a wide range of scientific disciplines. Many other factors, such as race, ethnicity, geographic location and socioeconomic standing, could also have important impacts on scientific research. </p>
<p>Recent events have vividly illustrated the effects of racial biases in areas ranging from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/us/jacob-blake-shackles-assault.html">criminal justice</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/nyregion/central-park-amy-cooper-christian-racism.html">outdoor recreation</a>. Our study shows why it is important to address racial, gender and other biases to improve the outcomes of research, teaching and outreach at colleges and universities around the world.</p>
<p><em>Casey Haines, a recent undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was lead author of the study on which this article is based. Michelle Moyer, a PhD student at UMBC, helped with this work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin E. Omland receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evangeline Rose receives funding from the Maryland Ornithological Society</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karan Odom was supported by a U.S. National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (Grant No. 1612861) while working on this research. </span></em></p>For decades, scientists believed that only male birds sang. Then women entered the field and showed what their predecessors had missed.Kevin Omland, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyEvangeline Rose, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of MarylandKaran Odom, Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1451942020-08-28T15:53:28Z2020-08-28T15:53:28ZIt’s time to scrap the student loans ‘motherhood penalty’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355307/original/file-20200828-23-vyfese.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=153%2C64%2C4791%2C2978&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/unrecognizable-mother-son-sling-writing-on-578410708">Shutterstock/Halfpoint</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The student loans system was supposed to be a safe and fair way for everyone who seeks further education to get the funds they need. But the system is broken and women – particularly mothers – are <a href="https://www.unison.org.uk/motions/2019/women-members/young-women-and-student-loan-repayments/">bearing the brunt</a>. </p>
<p>It may come as a shock to some, but women on maternity leave in the UK who are paying off their student loans still accrue interest when they are on leave. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/what-you-pay">Loan repayments stop</a> if their income drops below £26,575 – but the interest doesn’t. It means that women graduates are effectively being <a href="https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/">financially penalised</a> for having children. </p>
<p>But the motherhood penalty is just the start of the story. Women are already subjected to workplace and <a href="https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/">societal inequality</a> and suffer most notably from the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/genderpaygapintheuk/2019">gender pay gap</a>. Full-time employed women earn on average 8% less than men for the same work. This means that women are being paid <a href="https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/still-work-do-gender-pay-gap-portsmouth-businesses-strive-equality-2878183">thousands of pounds less</a> a year. That figure is even more alarming considering that women owe around <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/21/women-two-thirds-student-loan-debt-slow-burning-crisis">two-thirds</a> of student loan debt in the UK.</p>
<h2>A gendered system</h2>
<p>Graduate women on maternity in the UK take longer to pay off their student loans in full. The UK government has estimated that for students starting university from 2006, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/02/uk.studentfinance">average student loan debt</a> on graduation would take an average of 11 years to repay for men and 16 years for women. </p>
<p>For those who started studying from 2012, most graduates are expected never to pay off their loans, male or female. But <a href="https://londoneconomics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/LE-Impact-of-student-loan-repayments-on-graduate-taxation-FINAL.pdf">research has found</a> that the difference in the treatment of men and women by the 2012 reforms is “substantial”. </p>
<p>The typical earnings profile of a woman – even when compared to a man in a similar job – means they tend to pay more and for a longer period of time, in particular through their middle working years. In other words, women are already paying more and the extra interest only adds to that.</p>
<p>Women also end up carrying longer term <a href="https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/">financial</a> and career burdens because men are less likely to take paternity leave. The issue is then further intensified by the <a href="https://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/r64.pdf">expenses</a> associated with childcare, which often force women into part-time work. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://twitter.com/Hello_Sabina/status/1297229603166130179">Twitter thread</a>, which has received much attention, has made it very clear that there are different costs for men and women who study for the same degree. The difference between the couple in question is that woman took two periods of maternity leave and accrued interest at a rate which effectively cancelled out the payments she had been making – meaning it will take her significantly longer than her husband to pay off the debt.</p>
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<p>The system is opaque and confusing. Many women – just like those responding on Twitter – have no idea they will accrue interest on existing loans during maternity leave. Many more will have been paying it and wondering <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/29/graduates-anger-nightmare-student-loans-company-complaints">why it is taking them so long</a> to pay off the debt. </p>
<p>COVID-19 has disproportionately affected working mothers, <a href="https://bdaily.co.uk/articles/2020/07/07/why-cant-the-chancellor-do-the-right-thing-by-women-entrepreneurs-ask-leading-womens-groups">especially entrepreneurs </a> and the self-employed. And <a href="https://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/r64.pdf">research shows</a> that women have experienced high levels of reductions in hours, furlough and redundancies because of childcare issues. </p>
<p>Pre-pandemic, women university graduates took on a larger <a href="https://www.unison.org.uk/motions/2019/women-members/young-women-and-student-loan-repayments/">burden of student debt</a> when they became mothers. This was on top of gender pay gap issues that often begin at <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-early-career-women-help-to-open-up-the-gender-pay-gap-81591">the early career stage</a> for women. </p>
<p>Working from home can also <a href="https://wonkhe.com/blogs/co-working-co-parenting-covid-19-will-working-from-home-exacerbate-gender-inequalities/">worsen gender inequalities</a> because women still undertake most of the childcare work and experienced greater strains during this time, as schools and nurseries were forced to close and childminders were unable to work. To make matters worse, there may well have been further interest accruals on student loans for women who were forced into part-time work and earned less than the payment threshold.</p>
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<p><a href="https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/childcare-covid-and-career/">Research</a> carried out during the pandemic has also found that half of the 15% of mothers who were made redundant (or expected to be made redundant imminently) believed that a lack of childcare provision played a role. </p>
<p>These issues are not limited to the UK. Research <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10834-018-9591-6">from the US</a> in 2019 found that student debt repayment is delaying women <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180926110917.htm">getting married</a> – but not men. </p>
<p>Women carry two-thirds of the total <a href="https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/deeper-in-debt/">US$1.54 trillion</a> (£1.16 trillion) student debt in the US – a massive burden. This affects <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/why-women-hold-the-majority-of-student-loans.html">ethnic minority women</a> graduates particularly. What’s more, high levels of student debt are a major barrier for people – particularly women – <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/these-are-the-ways-student-loans-stop-people-from-buying-a-house.html">buying homes</a>. </p>
<p>In Scotland, there is a forthcoming <a href="https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S5W-31396&ResultsPerPage=10">government consultation</a> on the issue, relating to student loans taken out for living costs. It will be interesting to see whether progressive steps will be taken to bring a degree of gender equality to student loans repayments. Unfortunately, there is currently no such action in England. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-early-career-women-help-to-open-up-the-gender-pay-gap-81591">How early career women help to open up the gender pay gap</a>
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<p>We are calling for a freeze on student loan interest accruals during maternity leave in the UK. This would be a small step to reducing systemic gender discrimination and the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/07/the-pinch-david-willetts">pinch</a>”, which refers to so-called Boomers (the post-war generation born between 1946 and 1964) pinching the future of their children. </p>
<p>As the country attempts to “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/lets-build-back-better">build back better</a>” post-lockdown and post-Brexit, this step would help to unshackle women graduates who choose to have children from extra and unfair burdens of debt at a time when people are increasingly <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/education/articles-reports/2020/01/09/why-are-britons-choosing-not-have-children">choosing not to</a> have children at all. </p>
<p>With the student <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/17/uk-exams-debacle-how-did-results-end-up-chaos">exam results fiasco</a> during the summer and bleak employment prospects for young people and graduates, some people already feel like their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/02/coronavirus-has-stolen-our-future-young-peoples-despair-as-jobs-evaporate">future has been stolen</a> from them. Removing the motherhood penalty on student loan interest repayments would at least signal some hope.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The student loans system is just another source of financial gender inequality.Emily Yarrow, Lecturer in International Human Resource Management, University of PortsmouthJulie Davies, Reader in Leadership & Development, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126982019-03-27T18:41:25Z2019-03-27T18:41:25ZWhy we still struggle with work-home conflict in women and men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265241/original/file-20190322-93063-1vnf917.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who's making dinner tonight? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-little-boy-child-standing-next-1323343292">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Still in 2019 women and men grapple with how best to balance work and other responsibilities in and out of the home. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/data/wgea-research/unpaid-care-work-and-the-labour-market">Women bear the brunt of household labor</a>, <a href="http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/getting-job-there-motherhood-penalty">take career hits if they become mothers</a>, and are <a href="https://hbr.org/2007/09/women-and-the-labyrinth-of-leadership">poorly represented in the upper levels of professional careers</a>. But the careers of men <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-21197-004">also suffer</a> if they take time out from paid work.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-we-reduce-gender-inequality-in-housework-heres-how-58130">We can we reduce gender inequality in housework – here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Why do these issues still persist? It may be at least partly from a failure to recognise the full picture of equality. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/home">new paper</a> gives eight different ways to view gender equality. Each is important but incomplete when viewed on its own in the real world, and the list is not exhaustive. These different aspects of equality need to be considered in tackling both gender inequality and work-home conflict. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I looked at this topic in the context of careers in science, but the findings are applicable across many industries, including medicine, law, engineering and education.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t8vJ0oviGgc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A two-minute wrap of the complexities of solving inequality in science.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Eight facets of inequality</h2>
<p>Consider each of the following aspects of equality: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>gender pay parity</strong> <br> – success is equal pay for men and women in comparable roles </li>
<li><strong>gender-balanced leadership</strong> <br> – success is when the proportion of female leaders matches the proportion of junior women </li>
<li><strong>gender balance across disciplines</strong> <br> – success is 50% women in all disciplines, including those historically viewed as male</li>
<li><strong>gender neutral assessment of individual performance</strong> <br> – success is objective assessment of performance</li>
<li><strong>equal workforce participation by men and women</strong> <br> – success is when women account for 50% of the workforce</li>
<li><strong>domestic labour shared equally by men and women</strong> <br> – success is when women and men spend equal time on childcare and household labour</li>
<li><strong>motherhood does not affect career</strong> <br> – success is when careers are unaffected by parenthood, for both genders</li>
<li><strong>career does not affect motherhood</strong> <br> – success is when parenting choices
are unaffected by career, for both genders.</li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s look at what happens when we view workplace equality with an overemphasis on one or only a few of these aspects. </p>
<h2>Mother of all conflicts</h2>
<p>Work-home conflict is both a symptom and a cause of gender inequality, and highlighting the issue can reinforce stereotypes about women as carers. The assumption of “negative spillover” (that family responsibilities impair work performance and vice versa, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-09461-001">rather than being mutually enhancing</a>) could well discourage employers from recruiting and promoting primary carers. </p>
<p>Downplaying the importance of work-home conflict is not the solution, however, because it implicitly devalues caring work. The devaluation of caring underpins many aspects of gender inequality, including the pay gap. </p>
<p>Economic analysis trumpets the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/the-power-of-parity-advancing-womens-equality-in-the-united-states">productivity gains from increasing female workforce participation</a>, but often fails to account for the economic value of unpaid labour currently done by women, a large part of which is care-giving. </p>
<p>Men are called to play a larger role in childcare to promote gender equality, but they are penalised more heavily than women when they take up <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-21197-004">flexible work arrangements</a>, especially in societies where gender roles are firmly entrenched. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-weve-had-gender-the-wrong-way-around-what-if-for-workplace-parity-we-focused-on-men-107142">What if we've had gender the wrong way around? What if, for workplace parity, we focused on men?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What would success look like?</h2>
<p>So is the issue that women do more low-value caring work, both at home and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2">at work</a>? Or is the problem that caring work is perceived as less valuable because it’s done by women? </p>
<p>This conundrum exposes one of the biggest challenges for workplace gender equality: defining and measuring success. Inequalities between men and women are widespread, well-documented and routinely condemned, and yet it’s not clear how equality is best defined or measured. Each of our <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(19)30056-4">eight indicators</a> is valid, but none is sufficient, and our list does not capture all aspects of equality.</p>
<p>For example, gender balance in the workplace is the goal of many equality initiatives. It is particularly important to increase the number of women in traditionally male jobs, and to provide role models and opportunities for women to meet their potential. Since <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/women-pay-gap/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e538c2c3ccf0">male-dominated sectors attract better pay</a>, this approach also addresses some aspects of the gender pay gap. </p>
<p>But efforts to attract women into traditionally masculine jobs (such as the <a href="https://www.sciencegenderequity.org.au/what-sage-does/">Science in Australia Gender Equity Initiative</a>) are not matched by equivalent efforts to attract men into feminised sectors (such as nursing and childcare). This imbalance reinforces the perception that men’s work is more important than women’s work. It also fails to address a major cause of the gender pay gap: low pay in industries dominated by women. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-women-still-earn-a-lot-less-than-men-109128">Why women still earn a lot less than men</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Further, having more women around does not automatically create gender equality. Paradoxically, research suggests female retention and progression may actually be <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1529100614541236">higher in scientific disciplines where there are fewer women</a>. </p>
<p>Thus increasing the number of women in traditionally male areas is important for equality, but is only one piece of the puzzle. Workplace gender equality also depends on access to leadership roles, pay equality, workforce participation, social norms, flexible work arrangements, dealing with sexual harassment, explicit and unconscious bias, access to affordable high-quality childcare and more. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-were-serious-about-supporting-working-families-here-are-three-policies-we-need-to-enact-now-105490">If we're serious about supporting working families, here are three policies we need to enact now</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Keeping track</h2>
<p>Measuring progress is essential for holding leaders to account and evaluating <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20160613">whether equality initiatives actually work</a>. </p>
<p>Equality metrics need to be used with care, however, because each only captures one dimension of success. For example, increasing the number of women in leadership roles is paramount for gender equality. </p>
<p>Working part-time or taking time off to care for children will almost inevitably slow career progression. Therefore women employees might be pressured to follow the “<a href="https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/josi.12012">ideal worker</a>” model to help an organisation achieve their female leadership targets. This model presumes that workers (particularly professionals) <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018167">devote themselves completely to their work</a>, and have the resources, support and desire to outsource family demands such as caring for young children or elderly relatives. Thus a narrow focus on leadership for women could inadvertently perpetuate the “ideal worker” assumption, which penalises both men and women for flexible work. </p>
<p>Around the world, governments, workplaces, families and individuals are working hard to tackle workplace gender inequality, but no single initiative can deliver on all dimensions of equality. </p>
<p>As we move forwards, it’s important to specify what aspects of equality are the focus of any given action, so that it’s clear what else needs to be done. Focusing too narrowly on any one indicator can have perverse outcomes, undermining other aspects of equality.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Co-authors of <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/home">this research</a> with Kate O'Brien are Milena Holmgren, Terrance Fitzsimmons, Margaret Crane, Paul Maxwell and Brian Head.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are at least eight different ways to view gender equality. And this helps us understand why one of the biggest challenges for workplace gender equality is defining and measuring success.Kate O'Brien, Associate professor, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917062018-09-19T14:39:56Z2018-09-19T14:39:56ZWhy fewer Kenyan women are choosing or completing STEM courses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236849/original/file-20180918-158225-1tqfpn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenya needs policies that aim to draw women into STEM and retain them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pablo Calvog/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Globally, the percentage of women pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) <a href="http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs51-women-in-science-2018-en.pdf">is small</a>. In Africa, the numbers are even more dismal. The greatest imbalance is in engineering. In 2010 <a href="http://www.polity.org.za/article/science-is-for-boys-the-challenges-of-being-a-woman-in-science-2011-09-22">only one in four engineering students was a woman</a>. <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/education/feature/overcoming-gender-barriers-in-science-facts-and-figures-1.html">Guinea had the lowest percentage of women in science (5.8%)</a>. That’s equivalent to one in 17. </p>
<p>Two countries did extremely well on gender parity in STEM disciplines: Lesotho (55.7%) and Cape Verde (52.3%). </p>
<p>In Kenya STEM participation shows a <a href="http://www.ictliteracy.info/rf.pdf/Science-Engineering-Indicators2010.pdf">clear gender disparity</a> ranging from 30%-35%. Fewer women participate and even fewer complete their studies. In addition, their <a href="http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/3479">graduation scores are low</a> compared to those of males. This is a situation true of both developed and developing countries. </p>
<p>The number of women earning university STEM degrees declines as they move through the educational ladder, a phenomenon referred to as the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540250500145072">“leaky pipeline”</a>. This can be <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/women_still_a_minority_in_engineering_and_computer_science/">attributed</a> to the masculinity of the disciplines, stereotypes and associated prejudices.</p>
<p>In Kenya, <a href="http://www.ictliteracy.info/rf.pdf/Science-Engineering-Indicators2010.pdf">the female participation rate</a> at public universities is less than 30% in spite of existing educational <a href="https://www.ncst.mw/?page_id=1966">gender policies and interventions</a>. My <a href="http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/18585">study</a> sought to document female participation in STEM disciplines at Kenyan public universities between 2009 and 2013 and the factors at play. </p>
<p>The findings revealed that institutional and socio-cultural barriers contributed to poor performance of female students in these disciplines. These included gender stereotyping, sexual harassment and family responsibilities. Gender biases were not only revealed in inequality in enrolment and completion but also in policies that favoured male students in STEM disciplines.</p>
<h2>Gender biases</h2>
<p>Three public universities were selected for my study on the basis of their strong STEM orientation. Interviews were carried out with third-year female students and teaching faculty in STEM disciplines. Senior administrators in charge of gender policies were also interviewed to ensure fairness.</p>
<p>The study established that female students faced numerous challenges. Female students who became pregnant were subjected to penalties such as losing on-campus boarding privileges. This is significant because STEM disciplines are highly interactive and require students to spend more time on campus doing practicals and laboratory work. </p>
<p>None of the institutions have policies for ensuring nursing female students are retained within campus residence. They also do not offer child care programmes for nursing mothers who are students. This <a href="http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/18585">forms a barrier for female students</a> who take longer to complete their courses compared to male students. Others are forced to drop out.</p>
<p>Over 50% of STEM female respondents indicated that female students have to balance their studies with family chores and childbearing. A majority (56%) of the female respondents agreed that venturing into STEM disciplines would negatively affect their job prospects whereas 13.0% disagreed. A higher number (58%) believed that pursuing STEM disciplines would hinder progression at work because of the perceived stereotypes related to STEM careers. </p>
<p>The sentiments were confirmed during the interviews and focus groups. There, six out of eight discussants concurred that venturing into STEM disciplines negatively affected their future life in terms of job opportunities, promotion at work, getting a spouse and family life. </p>
<p>The respondents agreed with the sentiment that stereotypes are transmitted through verbal language, content of curriculum and the general organisation of teaching space. </p>
<p>Most societies see female STEM students as <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SC/pdf/sc_Assessment_of_Women_in_SET_Industries_in_Tanzania.pdf">intruders</a> into a male domain. They are treated like outsiders, seen as masculine, misplaced and face rejection by family and friends. Yet there are rewards for those who dare: <a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=960RDAAAQBAJ&pg=PR13&lpg=PR13&dq=Women+are+far+more+likely+to+be+equally+talented+in+both+math+and+verbal+domains+simultaneously,+giving+them+more+options+to+enter+non-math+fields+than+are+available+to+men.&source=bl&ots=iZMbZkH-vc&sig=1kSwFZmsABPRU_JlEvBQUk0SjGk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8aHayLLdAhWDhywKHV5ECOkQ6AEwAHoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=Women%20are%20far%20more%20likely%20to%20be%20equally%20talented%20in%20both%20math%20and%20verbal%20domains%20simultaneously%2C%20giving%20them%20more%20options%20to%20enter%20non-math%20fields%20than%20are%20available%20to%20men.&f=false">high ability women have more options than high ability men do</a>. As authors Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams write in their book The Mathematics of Sex: How Biology and Society Conspire to Limit Talented Women and Girls,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Women are far more likely to be equally talented in both math and verbal domains simultaneously, giving them more options to enter non-math fields than are available to men. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Women’s right to science</h2>
<p>Equal access to scientific and technological knowledge and skills by women <a href="https://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/">is first a rights issue</a>, in as much as education is a basic human right. Knowledge and skills gained through the study of STEM facilitate efforts to eradicate poverty, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14748460802700710">achieve</a> food security, fight diseases, improve education and respond to the challenges of society.</p>
<p>Empowering women can widen the pool of human resources available to drive development. So it is important that universities strengthen mentoring and role modelling for female students pursuing STEM disciplines. The government should also complement existing policy interventions, which begins with <a href="https://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few">gender responsive mathematics and science policies</a> at basic levels of education.</p>
<p>In collaboration with universities, the government should enhance specific financial aid programmes with clear policies that support female students from poor families. In addition to academic financial expenses, nursing mothers may require assistance to cope with non-academic pressures. </p>
<p>It is also time that targets were set to achieve a proportional increase of STEM female lecturers in universities and female mathematics and science teachers in lower levels of education. Female mathematics and science teachers would act as <a href="https://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few">invaluable role models</a> and mentors in a male dominated universe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Wandiri Mbirianjau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gender biases are revealed in enrolment inequalities and policies that favour male students.Lucy Wandiri Mbirianjau, Lecturer, Department of Educational Foundations, coordinator PGDE and Content Enhancement Programs, Kenyatta UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929992018-03-08T11:40:18Z2018-03-08T11:40:18ZPerish not publish? New study quantifies the lack of female authors in scientific journals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209364/original/file-20180307-146694-c6r2ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C119%2C2110%2C1541&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's not good if women's research isn't in the library stacks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/9o8YdYGTT64">Redd Angelo on Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Publish or perish” is tattooed on the mind of every academic. Like it or loathe it, publishing in high-profile journals is the fast track to positions in prestigious universities with illustrious colleagues and lavish resources, celebrated awards and plentiful grant funding. Yet somehow, in the search to understand why <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11624/to-recruit-and-advance-women-students-and-faculty-in-science">women’s scientific careers often fail to thrive</a>, the role of high-impact journals has received little scrutiny. </p>
<p>One reason is that these journals don’t even collect data about the gender or ethnic background of their authors. To examine the representation of women within these journals, with our colleagues Jason Webster and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zoE5t6YAAAAJ&hl=en">Yuichi Shoda</a>, we delved into MEDLINE, the online repository that contains records of almost every published peer-reviewed neuroscience article. We used the <a href="https://genderize.io">Genderize.io</a> database to predict the gender of first and last authors on over 166,000 articles published between 2005 and 2017 in high-profile journals that include neuroscience, our own scientific discipline. The results were dispiriting.</p>
<h2>Female scientists underrepresented</h2>
<p>We began by looking at first authors – the place in the author list that traditionally is held by the junior researcher who does the hands-on research. We expected over <a href="https://www.sfn.org/careers-and-training/faculty-and-curriculum-tools/training-program-surveys">40 percent to be women</a>, similar to the percentage of women <a href="https://www.sfn.org/careers-and-training/faculty-and-curriculum-tools/training-program-surveys">postdocs in neuroscience</a> in the U.S. <a href="https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/worldwide/japan/gender-equality-human-resources-research-and-marie-sklodowska-curie-actions">and Europe</a>. Instead, fewer than 25 percent first authors in the journals Nature and Science were women.</p>
<p>Our findings were similar for last authors, the place typically held by the laboratory leader. We expected the numbers to match large National Institutes of Health grants, which are a similarly rigorous measure of significance, scientific sophistication and productivity; <a href="https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2014/08/08/women-in-biomedical-research/">30 percent are awarded to women</a> – comparable to the proportion of <a href="http://www.sfn.org/nqmfp">women tenure-track faculty in neuroscience</a>. The proportion of women last authors was half what we expected – just over 15 percent of last authors in Science and Nature were women. </p>
<p><iframe id="E6h69" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/E6h69/8/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/275362">Our study, published online</a> and highlighted in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02833-1">letter printed in the journal Nature</a>, focused on neuroscience. We made <a href="https://goo.gl/x4s1iE">our code accessible</a>, and we’re thrilled that students in other fields are already beginning to examine the gender breakdown of bylines in their own disciplines. </p>
<p>One thing our data mining study doesn’t reveal is why women are so seriously underrepresented. But a large literature suggests that gender bias almost certainly plays a role. </p>
<h2>Bias in the publishing pipeline</h2>
<p>One place bias occurs is when scientists themselves undervalue the scientific contributions of women. One analysis found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000001261">women are more likely to be the person performing experiments</a>. Despite this, they are more likely to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066212">in the less prestigious “middle” author position</a>. Anecdotally, many laboratory leaders have observed that male students tend to be more proactive about negotiating their position in the author list than women.</p>
<p>Bias can also influence the reviewing process. Researchers at the Ohio State University found that, when reviewers are randomly assigned to evaluate scientific work ostensibly submitted by a female or a male author, they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684">rated the work written by male authors as having higher rigor</a>. An analysis of peer-review scores for postdoctoral fellowship applications in Sweden revealed a system that was “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/387341a0">riddled with prejudice</a>” – women were given lower competence ratings than men who had less than half their publication impact. Bias may be particularly strong when expectations are high – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150194">qualities like “brilliance” are far more likely to be attributed to men</a>. This may be why we found the proportion of women authors was negatively correlated with journal “impact factor.”</p>
<p>Finally, bias occurs within the editorial process.
Nature, in a series of editorials spanning more than a decade, has observed that its editors are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/4381078c">less likely to ask</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/491495a">women to write</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/541435b">commissioned pieces</a>.</p>
<p>Do women fail to “lean in”? Female authors may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-017-0052-6">less likely to submit</a> to high-profile journals. Success rates for elite journals are low – for instance, in Nature, less than <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/editorial-criteria-and-processes">10 percent of submissions make it into print</a>. In many fields, the publication delay associated with a failed submission means there’s a high risk of being scooped by another research team. If a female scientist estimates her chance of success more conservatively than a man, for whatever reason, she will be more likely to play it safe.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209392/original/file-20180307-146697-llpfdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author lists in journals should reflect who is doing science today and not the ‘old, white men’ of yore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/zeH-ljawHtg">Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Holding journals accountable</h2>
<p>Scientific publishing is staggeringly profitable: In 2017, Elsevier reported <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/elseviers-profits-swell-more-ps900-million">profits of over US$1.2 billion</a>. These companies rely heavily on the scientific community, both as authors of the journal content they are selling and as reviewers. Given the profit they make and the outsized influence they wield over scientific careers, it seems obvious that journals have a moral and perhaps even a legal responsibility to make sure the process is equable.</p>
<p>We believe journals need to take full responsibility for ensuring social equity across the publishing pipeline: encouraging women to submit, ensuring that women receive fair reviews, and enforcing equity in the editorial process.</p>
<p>There are some obvious first steps. The scientific community should demand that journals collect data about gender and ethnicity for article submissions and acceptances, and these data should be publicly available. That way researchers can choose to avoid (or even boycott) journals with a poor track record. Researchers should insist that reviewers be given more specific review criteria – such as requirements to explain their ratings of significance and impact, as well as their assessment of scientific quality, as is done at the <a href="https://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/critiques/rpg.htm">NIH</a> and the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappg17_1/pappg_3.jsp#IIIA">National Science Foundation</a>. Finally, it is past time for journals to adopt mandatory double-blind reviewing.</p>
<p>While the representation of women authors may not have changed over the last decade or so, the attitude of the scientific community has transformed. When I (Ione Fine) was an undergraduate at Oxford, I was told casually by a professor that “women don’t run with the ball intellectually” – even though I was interviewing him for a feminist magazine! (For 20 years, I have wondered whether this reflected extraordinary arrogance combined with a singular lack of tact or sheer idiocy.) But the only thing that made the comment surprising was the context – his attitude was commonplace.</p>
<p>These days there is an overwhelming consensus in our scientific community that scientific talent is not gendered. <a href="https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/athena-swan-members/">Universities</a>, <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10593/nsf10593.htm">funding agencies</a>, <a href="http://www.sfn.org/nqmfp">conference organizers</a> and individual laboratory leaders around the world are all working to resolve this problem. It is time for the journals to “lean in.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women are underrepresented in academic science. New research finds the problem is even worse in terms of who authors high-profile journal articles – bad news for women’s career advancement.Ione Fine, Professor of Psychology, University of WashingtonAlicia Shen, Ph.D Candidate in Psychology, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/854692017-10-10T15:43:29Z2017-10-10T15:43:29ZMen get most of the research funding – it’s a serious problem for women and science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189569/original/file-20171010-17697-rprsk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/one-female-chinese-laboratory-scientist-working-583554946">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In UK universities there are <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/one-in-three-uk-universities-going-backwards-on-female-professorships" title=""">far fewer women</a> in senior posts than men – particularly at professor level. Putting aside teaching, to reach this status, an academic typically needs to have completed a considerable amount of research. Research takes time, and if people want to succeed in academia, they have to apply for funding. This is where one key difference lies.</p>
<p>Women receive less funding than men, and they also apply for smaller grants than their male counterparts. Our <a href="http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/12/e003362.full">study</a> investigated the amount of research funding awarded to male and female study leads across over 6,000 studies related to infectious disease research in UK institutions. Around 75-80% of the funding was awarded to male principal investigators – a huge difference. In addition to the differences in total sums of money, there are also clear differences in the size of the grants secured.</p>
<h2>It’s a Catch-22</h2>
<p>So what’s the barrier to women getting funding? It’s unlikely to be widespread gender bias from the funders themselves. One of the most famous papers that did highlight clear biases in this area was a 1997 <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6631/pdf/387341a0.pdf">article</a> published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/about/index.html?foxtrotcallback=true">Nature</a> which pulled no punches in highlighting the problem in the peer review process of the <a href="https://www.vr.se/inenglish/aboutus.4.69f66a93108e85f68d48000123.html">Swedish Medical Research Council</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189572/original/file-20171010-19989-9zhdfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girls should feel that science class is a natural environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.22213087">PA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But this analysis is now 20 years old and does seem to be an outlier in an increasing pool of evidence. Most other analyses suggest there is no observable gender bias on the part of the research funders. For example, <a href="http://www.foundation.org.uk/Journal/pdf/fst_21_09.pdf#page=24">evidence</a> reported by the <a href="http://www.foundation.org.uk/About/Default.aspx">Foundation for Science and Technology</a> suggested there is no significant difference in the proportions of successful grant applications led by male and female researchers from the major UK funders, such as the <a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/about-us">Wellcome Trust</a> and the <a href="https://www.mrc.ac.uk/about/">Medical Research Council</a>.</p>
<p>So why are women getting less by way of grant amounts? With seniority comes big bucks. The more senior the person applying, the bigger the grant they are likely to be requesting. But with fewer senior women out there to apply for something big, it’s a <a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/catch-22.html">Catch-22</a>.</p>
<p>There are initiatives within, and involving, universities that may help. The <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/">Athena Swan programme</a> encourages institutions to consider inequalities and disadvantaged groups, and often focuses on the issues surrounding women in science. There is some <a href="https://health-policy-systems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12961-017-0177-9">evidence</a> to suggest it is having a positive effect. The <a href="https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/">National Institute for Health Research</a> (NIHR), one of the major UK funders, now insists that university departments and faculties must have at least a silver award from Athena Swan to be eligible to apply for their funding streams. Recipients of an Athena award have demonstrated through work practices and workplace philosophy their <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/about-athena-swan/">commitment</a> to gender equality and supporting women in STEM careers.</p>
<p>There is also an interesting clause in the guidance of the NIHR autumn 2017 <a href="https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding-and-support/funding-for-training-and-career-development/training-programmes/nihr-research-professorships/nihr-research-professorships-round-8.htm">call</a> for research professorships (a prestigious and significant award in the career of any aspiring health researcher). Institutions can put forward a maximum of two candidates, and at least one of the two candidates must be female.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189574/original/file-20171010-17697-14hzjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science needs to be promoted equally to girls and boys so that women are well represented in academia and business later in life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.10124950">PA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am not aware of other major research funders yet taking a similar approach (though they may do). It would be interesting to hear their views. As universities are increasingly strapped for cash, research income is important, so no doubt many faculties would be happy to jump through hoops to be eligible for all funding streams from the big players.</p>
<h2>Still a man’s world?</h2>
<p>Funding applications aside, there are good reasons for female academics to be disheartened about their chances of competing on a level playing field. A 2012 US-based <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract">study</a> revealed how identical CVs with a male name at the top were favoured over those with a female name. Then there is <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/11/new-analysis-offers-more-evidence-against-student-evaluations-teaching">the evidence</a> that female lecturers are rated lower than their male counterparts by students, without there being any obvious difference in the standard of their teaching. It takes an extra level of tenacity and determination for a woman to make it to the top in a world that is naturally skewed towards men.</p>
<p>There are many additional factors that come into play as to why there are clear differences between the careers of men and women in an academic environment. <a href="https://www.digital-science.com/about-us/">Digital Science’s</a> new <a href="https://figshare.com/articles/_/5463502">report</a>, Championing The Success of Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, and Medicine (STEM), explores many of these issues from a range of perspectives, as well as considering other areas where inequality is a problem. It also examines potential ways forward, including the use of mentors, feedback from the academic community and cultural changes that ensure there are more women into senior roles. </p>
<p>But what is very evident is that higher education institutions can prioritise the promotion of equality and still be successful in keeping their heads above water during the ongoing storm of funding cuts, Brexit and general political disdain towards experts. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zj--FFzngUk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This laughable 2012 video by the European Commission to encourage teenage girls to take an interest in science underscores the kind of problems that exist in the way women are perceived in terms of science. There was some furious <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/science-its-a-girl-thing-parody-video-neuroscientists-respond_n_2271569.html">backpedalling</a> by its creators soon after its release, but it is shocking to think it got approved in the first place. But at least its desperately hackneyed approach lays bare some of the sexist, outdated and demeaning attitudes that women have to endure in male-dominated environments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Head receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation</span></em></p>Women in science receive less funding than men and apply for smaller grants. This inequality needs to be addressed now.Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811932017-07-18T11:44:42Z2017-07-18T11:44:42ZMaryam Mirzakhani’s success showed us the challenges women in maths still face<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178626/original/file-20170718-10341-ztw0sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Marin Alsop conducted the Last Night of the Proms, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24008355">she said</a> that she was “quite shocked that it can be 2013 and there can still be firsts for women”. The following year, <a href="https://theconversation.com/maryam-mirzakhani-was-a-role-model-for-more-than-just-her-mathematics-81143">Maryam Mirzakhani</a> became the first woman to win the Fields Medal, awarded to mathematicians under 40 for their contribution to the subject. Now, after Mirzakhani’s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/maryam-mirzakhanis-pioneering-mathematical-legacy">sad death</a> from breast cancer at the age of 40, I am struck by the stark reality that in the 80 years since the award was first given, there has still been only one female winner so far.</p>
<p>It is important to note that Mirzakhani was a pioneer in other ways too. She was the first Iranian Fields medallist. Her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2014/aug/13/fields-medals-2014-maths-avila-bhargava-hairer-mirzakhani">mathematical research</a> on the geometry of complex surfaces was groundbreaking, and has opened up new horizons for others to explore. When she was awarded the Fields Medal, Mirzakhani immediately became an inspiration for many young mathematicians. I was delighted that, finally, a woman had won this prize, the highest accolade that the mathematical community awards. But I was also dismayed that it had taken so long. </p>
<p>For centuries, it was socially unacceptable, or even impossible, for women to study mathematics at the highest levels. As a young mathematician, I was inspired by the story of <a href="http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Germain.html">Sophie Germain</a>, who taught herself maths under the bedclothes in the face of opposition from her parents. She went on to make substantial contributions to mathematicians’ understanding of one of the most famous problems in mathematics: Fermat’s Last Theorem.</p>
<p>In 1890, <a href="http://www.diverse.cam.ac.uk/stories/fawcett/">Philippa Fawcett</a> was the highest performing maths student at the University of Cambridge. Yet women were not included in the main ranked list so the honour of Senior Wrangler (top student) went to a man, even though Fawcett scored higher. In the US in the 1940s, the mathematician <a href="https://www.awm-math.org/noetherbrochure/Robinson82.html">Julia Robinson</a> was not allowed to teach at the University of California at Berkeley, because her husband worked there and “nepotism rules” prevented them both working in the same department. She went on to play a major role in solving the tenth of Hilbert’s famous list of 23 problems.</p>
<p>Happily, things have moved on. These days, my own department and many others are actively seeking ways to improve gender diversity and inclusivity (as well as other forms of diversity). The <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/">Athena SWAN</a> scheme provides recognition to universities and departments who are making serious attempts in this area.</p>
<p>It requires effort and active engagement to change culture. Progress is being made, albeit slowly. The “<a href="https://theconversation.com/stopping-the-brain-drain-of-women-scientists-22802">leaky pipeline</a>” of academia (which sees women drop out at every level) means that even though gender diversity is improving amongst mathematics undergraduates, the balance is not great among postdocs and worse still among professors. <a href="https://www.lms.ac.uk/sites/lms.ac.uk/files/Benchmarking%20Data%20Updated%20for%202011-2015%20April%202016_0.pdf">Recent data</a> from the London Mathematical Society showed that from 2014 to 2015 around 40% of UK mathematics undergraduates were female, but only 9% of UK mathematics professors were female.</p>
<p>Of course the same phenomenon occurs in many walks of life, not just academia. There is lots being done to try to understand why this is the case in mathematics. Recruitment practices are being improved, and academics are being trained in unconscious bias. Perhaps a problem that is distinctive to mathematics (and closely related subjects) is cultural. There is sometimes an unhelpful, and in my opinion incorrect, perception that one has to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/26/reckon-you-were-born-without-a-brain-for-maths-highly-unlikely">some sort of genius</a> to succeed in mathematics, and this can be off-putting.</p>
<h2>Signs of progress</h2>
<p>Anecdotally, my impression is that there is more awareness now than say 15 years ago of the need to increase diversity within mathematics at all levels of seniority. At the same time, there is a danger that this might make the gender imbalance clearer to school students who might in turn feel inhibited in their desire to study mathematics. My personal hope is for all young people to experience the joys and frustrations, the creativity and the practicality of mathematics, so that those who wish to can take their mathematical studies further, regardless of gender or any other factor. </p>
<p>There are signs of progress in improving diversity in mathematics (of all forms, not just gender), but it’s taking a long time, and there are more firsts to come. We are still waiting for the first female winner of the <a href="http://www.abelprize.no/c53673/seksjon/vis.html?tid=53719">Abel Prize</a>, another major accolade in mathematics. Tragically, Mirzakhani died much too soon, but her mathematical contributions will live on, both in theorems and ideas that others can build on and also in inspiring future generations.</p>
<p>I look forward to the day when women winning the Fields Medal receive acclaim for their outstanding mathematical achievement, without reference to their gender. As Robinson wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What I really am is a mathematician. Rather than being remembered as the first woman this or that, I would prefer to be remembered, as a mathematician should, simply for the theorems I have proved and the problems I have solved.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicky Neale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It took 80 years for a woman to be awarded the highest prize in mathematics, the Fields Medal.Vicky Neale, Whitehead Lecturer at the Mathematical Institute and Supernumerary Fellow at Balliol College, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549792016-03-07T11:03:21Z2016-03-07T11:03:21ZWhy are political experts mostly men? Women also know stuff<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113895/original/image-20160304-17753-1knpujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">#Womenalsoknowstuff</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mlibrary/2432412806/in/photolist-4GWKzQ-7YyLMT-4dRptV-aDZvmc-29Bir-s7qqqP-5g5jE-6XWnni-9hVwn5-8V3p3y-5pMx8x-5w1nz9-6Uyiow-bpaHEL-oV7fR4-6QMfyH-jErK-qj62kg-b2duTH-bym1Mi-2WrXdG-4TLpgH-e7cV9-gkHg9f-t5KTi6-4UGWu-4BwZYB-8qAcUo-54WeiX-8Dj5Ei-C4gjU-iQcdH2-3U85KT-8Hfvq-cABpah-NF5g-gkmHaq-wZL9p-gktkaF-nJRovb-gyHFtw-gkmWVd-gj4NMX-7LaQHF-gj7j76-9Thdwo-gjaaYW-9dx9RG-gjaabK-nVr4u">University of Michigan Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the rise of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rhetorical-brilliance-of-trump-the-demagogue-51984">Republican candidate Donald Trump</a>, the <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/jeb-bush-dropping-out-set-up-to-fail-213662">demise of establishment candidates</a> and a nomination contest <a href="https://theconversation.com/clinton-sanders-and-the-changing-face-of-the-democratic-party-54304">between a self-proclaimed socialist and a woman</a>, this election has delivered many surprises. Political scientists have often been called to weigh in. </p>
<p>Such conversations are critical as they enable academics to communicate the science of politics and add to the public discourse. However, in our experience, women academics have been often missing in these conversations.</p>
<p>This observation is consistent with other data in media representation: <a href="http://www.womensmediacenter.com/pages/statistics">only 26 percent of guests</a> on the Sunday morning talk shows were women in 2013, and <a href="http://www.poynter.org/2013/lack-of-female-sources-in-new-york-times-stories-spotlights-need-for-change/217828/">men were 3.4 times</a> more likely to be quoted on the front page of <em>The New York Times.</em></p>
<p>Is this simply because there are fewer women faculty in political science, particularly in the more advanced professorial ranks? </p>
<p>As women faculty in the discipline, we don’t believe this is the reason. Rather, a combination of <a href="http://thepoliticalmethodologist.com/2014/03/31/implicit-bias-and-why-it-matters-to-the-field-of-political-methodology/">“implicit gender biases”</a> whereby women’s lack of expertise is often simply assumed, and “network effects,” which can inadvertently exclude women who do not share the same networks as individuals charged with finding experts, may lay the foundation for women’s absence in expert discussions. And ultimately, this can lead to a skewed perception of experts as men.</p>
<h2>Gender gap in political science</h2>
<p>Beyond the number of women faculty, other obstacles prevent women from being called upon to serve as experts within the profession and beyond. </p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000364">Research</a> shows that women in political science do not attain tenure and other promotions at the same rates as men, even when controlling for multiple relevant factors. </p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049096507070564">More recent</a> data show women are underrepresented in the top journals in the discipline. For example, even though women earn 40 percent of the Ph.D.s in political science, they author only 16 percent of articles published in the <em>American Political Science Review,</em> the discipline’s premier publication outlet. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113896/original/image-20160304-4575-xfkj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are women missing on expert panels?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/csis_er/21093840196/in/photolist-aKQehP-xTFH9b-xP5JP7-xTFGVL-xTGSAo-ybiNne-xehHqG-xehAU5-y8ZrMW-xTNwR2-xTNxdp-uK9a2a-uGzs9j">CSIS | Center for Strategic & International Studies</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also a gap in perceived and actual influence in the discipline. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X08000068">A survey </a> of international relations (IR) faculty revealed only two women included in the “top 25” IR scholars in the past 20 years, consistent with work finding <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049096507070199">women are underrepresented</a> on a list of the 400 most cited political scientists. More <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0020818313000209">analysis</a> indicates that IR journal articles authored by women are cited 20 percent less than articles by men. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/insp.12026/epdf">Other research</a> on IR journals reports further gendered citation patterns – male-authored articles and mixed-gender authorship produce bibliographies that are 9-11 percent women authors, while female-authored articles’ bibliographies contain upwards of 21 percent women authors.</p>
<p>Women’s careers are impacted in multiple other ways as well. </p>
<p>Women do more <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049096513000073">“low-status” service work than men</a> <a href="https://medium.com/@chanda/academic-housework-the-engine-of-science-society-cb4153faa724#.r8jlkfzfu">such as</a> advising students, serving on committees and producing ad hoc reports. Women face “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1537592708080572">gender devaluation</a>” when they hold leadership positions such as section head for a professional meeting, where the status of a position is downplayed as mostly secretarial. They are also at a <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4">clear disadvantage</a> in terms of student evaluations of teaching. For <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/420499">example</a>, women spend more time with students outside of class but receive ratings for accessibility equivalent to those of male faculty. All of this additional time equates to time away from research. </p>
<p>In other words, women academics face inherent biases in this profession, which have important implications for perceptions of expertise. Furthermore, conforming to stereotypical expectations of being nurturing undercuts a woman’s ability to be perceived as an <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6219/262.short">expert</a>.</p>
<h2>A website is born</h2>
<p>Such implicit bias can be cyclical – the less people see women as experts, the less they imagine that women can hold expertise.</p>
<p>It seems inadequate to laugh off the all-male panel or “<a href="http://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/">manel</a>” as it has come to be called, or grumble about <a href="http://mansplained.tumblr.com/">mansplaining</a> whereby men position themselves as experts, explaining things to women, often in ways that are condescending or patronizing. </p>
<p>So, what can we do about it?</p>
<p>About three weeks ago a number of women in the discipline received an email from <a href="https://sgpp.arizona.edu/user/samara-klar">Samara Klar</a>, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arizona. She shared frustration over recent news articles and symposia featuring zero women political scientists. An idea was born: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let’s crowdsource a website of women academics in political science to make it easier to find women experts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>From this was born a website, <a href="http://womenalsoknowstuff.com/">#WomenAlsoKnowStuff</a>, which offers an accessible database of women experts in political science. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"704834130635333632"}"></div></p>
<p>Within a few hours of launching the site, the response was so overwhelming it became evident a team was needed. An editorial board was quickly formed to oversee the development of the website. It was clear we had identified a need for women in academia broadly as requests to be listed on the site poured in from women in various fields all over the world. Journalists and other political scientists also wrote to indicate how they were using it to identify experts, cites, and expand their networks. </p>
<p>Some weeks later, the board, of which we are part, is grappling with the implications of the website’s success. It is currently engaged in planning, fundraising and publicity efforts to oversee the website’s growth and to prolong and ultimately measure its impact.</p>
<h2>What’s the evidence</h2>
<p>Several programs have been developed in the past to address gender gaps in political science and academia, such as <a href="http://www.saramitchell.org/journeys.html">Journeys in World Politics</a>, <a href="http://visionsinmethodology.org">Visions in Methodology (VIM)</a> and the <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/committees/cswep/index.php">CeMent program in Economics</a>. These programs bring women together in small conferences to offer research mentorship and networking opportunities. </p>
<p>These programs were found to be effective when their impact was measured after a few years. For example, five years after the first group of women attended a CeMent conference, <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w15707">women were found</a> to have an average of 0.4 more major grants and three additional publications. Their probability of publication in a top outlet increased 25 percent. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://thepoliticalmethodologist.com/2014/03/24/an-assessment-of-the-visions-in-methodology-initiative-directions-for-increasing-womens-participation/">a survey of women</a> who had participated in VIM conferences (which promote the use of statistics and experiments by women in political science) revealed VIM participants to be better networked and more productive, both in terms of publications and submission to top journals, compared to men and women who had not attended a conference. </p>
<p>These programs suggest short-term interventions can have broad effects, namely, disrupting mostly male networks helps to amplify the voices of women.</p>
<p>#WomenAlsoKnowStuff hopes to build on this work. The programs described described above have important effects, which could make gradual changes in who gets perceived as expert, but we see our website as a more disruptive change. We hope that this would have an impact on promotion, tenure and citation, which over time may shift perceptions of who the experts are. </p>
<p>Waiting for women to gradually accrue more status and influence in the profession is not sufficient. Our goal – the success of which we plan to evaluate systematically – is for #WomenAlsoKnowStuff to amplify the voices of women in political science.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Beaulieu is affiliated with The Midwest Political Science Association's Women's Caucus (current president).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Searles receives funding from the Darlene & Thomas O Ryder Professorship in the Manship School of Mass Communication.</span></em></p>This Tuesday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. Gender biases continue and women’s voices are missing from expert discussions.Emily Beaulieu, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of KentuckyKathleen Searles, Assistant Professor of Political Communication, Louisiana State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/515502015-12-14T10:54:22Z2015-12-14T10:54:22ZWhy today’s long STEM postdoc positions are effectively anti-mother<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105571/original/image-20151213-16329-1t9dhgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Does it need to be so hard to be a mom and a professor?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/4328012789">Quinn Dombrowski</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The fallen leaves remind, once again, that the Hunger Games of securing coveted tenure-track academic jobs have begun. This is my second year serving on the Northwestern University Department of Neurobiology Search Committee, and we’ve received nearly 300 applications for a single faculty position this time around. Less than a third are from women.</p>
<p>We often hear about the leaky STEM pipeline, and the data bear this out, both at the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/495022a">national levels</a> and within our local search. From what I see as a recent female postdoc with children and now an assistant professor making hiring decisions and advising postdocs seeking academic positions, there are some serious problems uniquely faced by women in academic STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105608/original/image-20151213-9591-jlhi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demographic data for this year’s applicants to a tenure-track position at Northwestern.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Here’s who I see applying</h2>
<p>Our applicants are impressively accomplished, and their age matches their scientific contributions. On average, this group – both men and women – defended their PhDs a little before 2008. </p>
<p>That means that now at the close of 2015, the bulk of our applicants have lingered in postdoctoral limbo for more than half a decade. A postdoc position used to be an optional step toward independence in my field of neuroscience. Eventually, a year or two of research experience after receiving a doctoral degree and before winding up in a faculty job became expected. But now, seeing strong candidates with less than five years of high profile post-PhD work is rare.</p>
<p>The lengthening of this training period is reflected in the aging pool of recipients of R01 grants, the key funding mechanism for biomedical science laboratories, administered by the National Institutes of Health. The average age of first-time recipients has <a href="http://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2012/02/13/age-distribution-of-nih-principal-investigators-and-medical-school-faculty/">crept up to 42</a>, while the proportion of R01 holders younger than 36 has dropped from 16% in 1980 to 3% by 2010. </p>
<h2>Stretching the STEM career path affects women disproportionately</h2>
<p>The National Science Foundation <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/chapter-2/c2s2.htm">reports</a> that women have comprised half of STEM undergraduate degrees since the 1990s. Yet, a gender gap emerges during the long years of academic training, and it grows substantial in time for faculty appointments. As seen in our representative pool of applicants, the average applicant age for tenure-track assistant professor positions is now past the peak age of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22082792">female fertility</a> (think a PhD at 28-29 years of age, plus a 5-7 year long postdoc).</p>
<p>Here’s where things get sticky for those who think the advances of feminism mean women should be able to cobble together some version of “having it all.” Building a family while pursuing a STEM career has pitfalls. Delaying childbirth until reaching a tenure-track job could mean long years trying to conceive and expensive assisted reproductive technologies – average price of an IVF cycle is over <a href="http://www.resolve.org/family-building-options/making-treatment-affordable/the-costs-of-infertility-treatment.html">US$10,000</a> – with no guarantee of success. So, a female scientist who wants a family must seriously consider childbirth during her postdoc.</p>
<p>However, postdoctoral salaries are low, and the days are long. The recommended starting salary for a new research fellow is below <a href="https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/research/funding/general/nrsa-fund-guide">$43,000</a>, per National Institutes of Health. A year of high-quality childcare for two kids at daycare centers near prominent research institutions costs more than a postdoc salary – even before taxes are taken out.</p>
<p>While high daycare costs in US cities (even surpassing <a href="http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-much-youll-spend-on-childcare_1199776.bc">$2,000</a> per child per month in some places) seems like a problem for male and female postdocs, it disproportionately affects aspiring female academics. As described in the <a href="http://gender.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/DualCareerFinal_0.pdf">Dual-Career Research Report</a> from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, academic females are more likely to be partnered with academic males. The same is not true for the more numerous males. Many successful academics acknowledge the <a href="https://theconversation.com/workaholism-isnt-a-valid-requirement-for-advancing-in-science-44555">importance of stay-at-home partners</a>, or partners with flexible jobs, in their rise to academic fame. As described in the same Stanford report, 20% of male academics, but only 5% of females, have a stay-at-home partner. These gender differences, together with the fact that even in our egalitarian society, accomplished women in leadership positions still tend to be responsible for the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.7326/M13-0974">majority of childcare</a>, mean that the careers of women in STEM are hindered by the choice to have a family.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105572/original/image-20151213-16329-1sjwmuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Here come the professors… but were they on a level playing field?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cliffspics/149470906">Jack Duval</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Institutional support needs to change</h2>
<p>Universities today are doing more for the families of their faculty and, increasingly, many are expanding benefits programs to cover all of their staff. But postdoctoral fellows, often classified as trainees, can fall through the cracks, receiving different, lesser benefits than faculty and staff. Sometimes, they receive no benefits at all. Recently, the National Postdoctoral Association released a large <a href="https://npamembers.site-ym.com/?page=policy_report_databa">Institutional Policy Survey</a> that highlighted considerable variability in benefits and programs available to postdocs in responding institutions. Postdoctoral training features benefits that are remnants of an earlier time when postdocs were rare and transient positions. </p>
<p>How do we upgrade to Postdoc 2.0, a version of life for young academics that plugs the leak of talented women in STEM? Prestigious female-targeted postdoc awards, like the glamorous <a href="http://www.lorealusa.com/Foundation/Article.aspx?topcode=Foundation_AccessibleScience_Fellowships">L'Oreal Fellowship</a> that supports only five STEM female postdocs every year, are woefully few. Yet, research universities themselves have the power and the funding structure to implement a variety of strategies that would support women in STEM. Here are concrete examples I think would be valuable to consider:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Award several thousand dollars to female postdocs with children when they go on the academic job market. This can cover high-quality childcare, travel with children or living costs for family caretakers.</p></li>
<li><p>Create competitive internal scholarships to fund a research technician for a year, when a female postdoctoral fellow is pregnant, or with infant. The technician would carry on the fellow’s experiments during the time she must be away from the bench. </p></li>
<li><p>Ensure that postdocs’ benefits don’t vary based on salary funding sources (that is, grants, fellowships, etc), and that their benefits are comparable to faculty and staff.</p></li>
<li><p>Train and perhaps financially support the laboratory directors of female academics with families. University faculty are taught to <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/09/protecting-students,-faculty,-staff-from-sexual-misconduct.html">recognize and avoid misconduct</a>, but not how to help pregnant female trainees design flexible work schedules that advance their career while protecting family time. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The cost of some of these programs would be pennies in the budget of our great research institutions, but the impact on gender distribution in STEM could be transformative. Moreover, such programs are likely to have immediate measurable impact on the success of women postdocs transitioning to independence in academia. The institutions that take the lead will attract the top STEM postdocs. </p>
<p>For sure, designing programs to advance women in STEM will take careful consideration, when even a Supreme Court justice takes a stand against affirmative action, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/affirmative-action-supreme-court-university-of-texas/index.html">suggesting</a> that minority students might fare better at less-advanced, slower-track schools.</p>
<p>But let us not silence half our voices. Diverse companies and institutions are <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/why_diversity_matters">more efficient and more creative</a>. Both pragmatic and social justice considerations support striving toward a STEM workforce that mirrors US demographics. We should ensure that the odds in academia, however low overall, aren’t stacked against female aspiring scientists who hope to have families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51550/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The limits of fertility and an elongated academic career path are currently at odds. If the choice to bear children contributes to the ‘leaky pipeline’ of women in STEM, what can be done?Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, Assistant Professor of Neurobiology, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494112015-10-21T10:31:54Z2015-10-21T10:31:54ZWomen preferred for STEM professorships – as long as they’re equal to or better than male candidates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99117/original/image-20151021-32255-14wyo4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How much do hiring decisions in academia factor in the gender of the applicant?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=268365578&src=id">Files image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 1980s, there has been robust real-world evidence of a preference for hiring women for entry-level professorships in science, engineering, technology and math (STEM). This evidence comes from hiring audits at universities. For instance, <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12062/gender-differences-at-critical-transitions-in-the-careers-of-science-engineering-and-mathematics-faculty">in one audit of 89 US research universities</a> in the 1990s, women were far less likely to <em>apply</em> for professorships – only 11%-26% of applicants were women. But once they applied, women were more likely to be invited to interview and offered the job than men were.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MDARP/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>But what went on behind the scenes with these hiring decisions? Did women applicants give better job talks than men, publish more or in better journals, or have stronger letters of recommendation? Were hiring committees trying to address the <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2015/nsf15311/digest/">faculty gender balance</a> that typically skews more male than female?</p>
<p>To find out why academic faculty preferred women, an experiment was needed, and we recently conducted one.</p>
<h2>Collecting hypothetical hiring data</h2>
<p>Previously, in five national experiments, we asked 873 faculty from 371 colleges and universities in all 50 US states to rank three hypothetical applicants for entry-level professorships, based on narrative vignettes about the candidates and their qualifications. We <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/04/08/1418878112.DCSupplemental/pnas.1418878112.sapp.pdf">told participants</a> our goal was to collect information about what faculty looked for in job applicants when hiring, so we could advise our own graduate students.</p>
<p>We asked them to imagine that colleagues in their department had already met these hypothetical applicants, evaluated their CVs, attended their job talks, read their letters of recommendation – and rated the applicants as 9.5 out of 10 (very impressive) or 9.3 (still impressive, but just less so).</p>
<p>One of the applicants was an outstanding woman, pitted against an identically outstanding man. Because men and women were depicted as equally talented, any hiring preference had to be due to factors other than candidate quality. We included a third, male, foil candidate as one of the many ploys we employed to mask the gendered purpose of the experiment. In this previously published research, we found that both female and male faculty strongly prefer (by a 2-to-1 margin) to <a href="http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418878112">hire an outstanding woman over an identically outstanding man</a>. The sole exception to this finding was that male economists had no gender preference.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98897/original/image-20151019-23226-98mll6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Faculty of both genders exhibit 2-to-1 preference for hiring women applicants with identically outstanding qualifications, with the exception of male economists.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even when we gave faculty only a single applicant to evaluate, those given the woman rated her more hireable than did those given the identical applicant depicted as a man. Not surprisingly, this finding caused a <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Passions-Supplant-Reason-in/232989?cid=megamenu">media frenzy</a>, as it <a href="https://theconversation.com/some-good-news-about-hiring-women-in-stem-doesnt-erase-sex-bias-issue-40212">contradicted what many believe</a> to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-face-it-gender-bias-in-academia-is-for-real-44637">sexist hiring in academia</a>. </p>
<p>Note that these experiments were not designed to mimic actual academic hiring, which entails multi-day visits, job talks and so on. The purpose of our experiments was not to determine <em>if</em> women are favored in actual hiring but rather to determine <em>why</em> data suggest they are in real-world conditions. To answer this question, one needs a controlled experiment to equate applicants.</p>
<p>Remember that our experiment looked at typical short-listed candidates – who are extremely qualified – at the point of hiring, and did not address advantages or disadvantages potentially experienced by women, girls, men and boys throughout their development. It is worth acknowledging, though, that a 2-to-1 advantage enjoyed at the point of tenure-track hiring is substantial and represents a pathway into the professoriate that is far more favorable for women than men.</p>
<h2>Finding the limit to a preference for women</h2>
<p>We wondered how deeply the faculty preference for women that we’d previously identified ran. Do faculty prefer a woman over a slightly more qualified man? How about a much more qualified man?</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01532">most recent experiment</a>, just published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, examined this question.</p>
<p>Using the same methods from our earlier study, we presented 158 STEM faculty with two male applicants and one female applicant for a tenure-track assistant professorship in their specific field. We presented another 94 faculty with two female applicants and one male applicant. In one contest, the female applicant was slightly less outstanding than her two male competitors, although still impressive; in the other, the male applicant was slightly less outstanding than his two female competitors.</p>
<p>It turned out that faculty of both genders and in all fields preferred the applicant rated the most outstanding, regardless of gender. Specifically, faculty preferred to hire slightly more outstanding men over slightly less outstanding women, and they also preferred to hire slightly more outstanding women over slightly less outstanding men.</p>
<h2>Reconciling with other STEM sex bias research</h2>
<p>These results show that the preference for women over equally outstanding men in our earlier experiments does not extend to women who are less accomplished than their male counterparts. Apparently, when female and male candidates are not equally accomplished, faculty view quality as the most important determinant of hiring rankings.</p>
<p>This finding suggests that when women scientists are hired in the academy, it is because they are viewed as equal or superior to males. These results should help dispel concerns that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1602">affirmative hiring practices</a> result in inferior women being hired over superior men.</p>
<p>The absence of preference for a less outstanding man does not necessarily imply that academic hiring is meritocratic under all conditions. It is possible that with different levels of candidate information (or if the candidates were somewhat less competent, as opposed to being stellar), results might differ. Discrimination may be a concern when candidate qualifications are ambiguous, but, based on our study, not when candidates are exceptionally strong. Thus, our interpretation of our results is that women who are equal to or more accomplished than men enjoy a substantial hiring advantage. </p>
<p>These findings may provoke concerns. If affirmative action is intended to not merely give a preference to hiring women over identically qualified men, but also to tilt the odds toward hiring women who are slightly less accomplished but still rated as impressive, gender diversity advocates may be disheartened. Those who’ve lobbied for more women to be hired in fields <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">in which they are underrepresented</a>, such as engineering and economics, may find the present findings dismaying and argue that extremely well-qualified female candidates should be given preference over males rated a notch higher. </p>
<p>One claim finds no support in our new findings: the allegation that the dearth of women in some fields is the result of superior female applicants being bypassed in favor of less accomplished men. If excellent women applicants were given short shrift, the slightly less qualified man would have been chosen frequently over more qualified women. But this scenario occurred only 1.2% of the time – similar to the number of times a slightly less accomplished woman was chosen over a more accomplished man.</p>
<p>None of this means women no longer face unique hurdles in navigating academic science careers.</p>
<p>Evidence shows that female lecturers’ <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4">teaching ability is downrated</a> due to their gender, letter writers for applicants for faculty posts in some fields use <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9291-4">more standout (ability) words</a> when referring to male applicants, faculty harbor beliefs about the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1261375">importance of innate brilliance</a> in fields in which women’s representation is lowest, and newly hired women in biomedical fields receive <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.8517">less than half the median start-up packages</a> of their male colleagues – to mention a few areas in which women continue to face challenges.</p>
<p>Nor do the present findings deny that historic sexism prevented many deserving women from being hired, or that current implicit <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000005">stereotypes associating science with men</a> are not related to lower science course-taking.</p>
<p>All of these studies suggest areas in need of further work to ensure equality of opportunity for women.</p>
<p>On the other hand, based on <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">hundreds of analyses of national data</a> on the lives of actual faculty women and men across the United States, we and economists Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn found that the overwhelming picture of the academy since 2000 is one of gender fairness. Our analyses examined hiring, remuneration, promotion, tenure, persistence, productivity, citations, effort and job satisfaction in every STEM field. The experiences of women and men professors today are largely comparable, as is their job satisfaction.</p>
<p>Our new experimental findings call into question unqualified claims of biased tenure-track hiring. Sex biases and stereotypes might reduce the number of women beginning training for the professorial pipeline, but when a woman emerges from her training as an excellent candidate, she is advantaged during the hiring process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen J Ceci receives funding from NIH.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy M Williams receives funding from National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>Previous research found a preference in academia for hiring stellar female candidates over stellar male candidates for STEM jobs. A new study investigated what happens if applicants aren’t as evenly matched.Stephen J Ceci, Professor of Human Development, Cornell UniversityWendy M Williams, Professor of Human Development, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/489242015-10-13T10:08:30Z2015-10-13T10:08:30ZMen and women biased about studies of STEM gender bias – in opposite directions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98149/original/image-20151012-17809-lgsk9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How you assess the strength of gender bias research depends on your viewpoint.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=295953134&src=lb-29877982">Glasses image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2012, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">an experiment on gender bias</a> shook the scientific community by showing that science faculty favor male college graduates over equally qualified women applying for lab manager positions. Though the study was rigorous, many <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361684314565777">didn’t believe it</a>. </p>
<p>“This report is JUNK science. There is no data here,” said <a href="http://nyti.ms/1QlEZsg">one online commenter</a>. Others <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361684314565777">justified the bias</a> saying, “In every competitive situation, with a few exceptions, the women I worked with were NOT competent.”</p>
<p>Now, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1510649112">a study published</a> in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides crucial clues about why some people were critical of the original finding – and other studies that have followed. The new study’s authors reasoned that men especially might devalue the evidence because it threatens the legitimacy of their status in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Men might also be critical because of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891243212451904">prior beliefs</a> that gender bias is not a problem in STEM.</p>
<h1>Assessing the original study</h1>
<p>To test these ideas, the researchers recruited 205 people from the general public and 205 Montana State University tenure-track faculty. These participants read and then evaluated the abstract of the now-famous 2012 study also published in PNAS.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">The abstract</a> noted that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student — who was randomly assigned either a male or female name — for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Men rated the research quality of the abstract less favorably than did women in both samples. This gender gap was especially large for STEM faculty, potentially suggesting that evidence of bias might threaten men in STEM seeking to <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792282">retain their status</a>. </p>
<p>When reading these results, a male scientist might think, “oh my gosh…if we’re going to fix this equality issue, that almost necessarily means that there’s going to be fewer opportunities for men,” said Ian Handley, lead author of the new PNAS paper and associate professor of psychology at Montana State. Handley suggested that discounting evidence more likely reflects a subtle, unconscious process than overt sexism.</p>
<p>The researchers also tested for gender bias toward the abstract’s authors. Participants were randomly assigned to read an abstract identifying the first author’s first name as either “Karen” or “Brian.” Either way, “Karen’s” and “Brian’s” research were overall evaluated the same. In other words, the first author’s perceived gender didn’t affect what participants thought of the research itself.</p>
<p>This lack of author gender bias <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.22784">replicates prior research</a>. Both <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.10">experimental</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014871108">real-world data</a> typically show little to no gender bias in peer review. However, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684">notable exceptions</a> are <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/09/dutch-sexism-study-comes-under-fire">sometimes found</a>.</p>
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<p>This evidence about mostly gender-fair peer review is encouraging. But men, especially those in STEM, are still overall more reluctant to accept the evidence of bias when it does exist. This reluctance might prevent efforts to change bias because men hold the majority of top positions in STEM. In 2010, for instance, men were 65% of full professors in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">psychology</a>, 76% in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">life science</a> and 92% in <a href="https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/faculty/womenfac-pa-10.pdf">physics</a>.</p>
<p>“We can’t try to solve a problem if we don’t know it exists,” said Jessi Smith, professor of psychology at Montana State and coauthor of the new PNAS study. </p>
<h1>Women have their own biases</h1>
<p>A third study tested how people respond to studies finding no bias. This addition is important because some facets of academia such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.22784">peer review</a> don’t <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.10">always show bias</a>. Researchers therefore randomly assigned 303 participants from the general public to read an abstract that either reported bias favoring men or reported no bias.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98170/original/image-20151013-17811-1kkr0d3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Results from Experiment 3 showing that both genders are biased, but in opposite directions. Source: Handley, Brown, Moss-Racusin, and Smith (2015)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even though the research methods were identical across conditions, women rated the quality of the research higher when the abstract showed bias than when it didn’t. Men showed the reverse pattern. So both genders were biased, but in opposite directions.</p>
<h1>Fairly evaluating gender bias research</h1>
<p>The results suggest challenges in fairly evaluating gender bias research. People may unintentionally ignore evidence if it conflicts with their social identities or prior beliefs. Special care should be taken to seek disconfirming evidence. For instance, the new paper made claims about “robust gender biases documented repeatedly,” but could have also noted the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014871108">vigorous scholarly debate</a> about such claims.</p>
<p>The paper argues that “numerous experimental findings” provide “copious evidence” of gender bias. But studies have found mixed evidence. For instance, the paper notes <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1018839203698">an experiment</a> showing bias against female psychology tenure-track applicants. But experiments conducted 15+ years later show <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418878112">opposite results</a>. In fact, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020581">several</a> <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/04/08/1418878112.DCSupplemental/pnas.1418878112.sapp.pdf">studies</a> show a <em>preference</em> for female applicants in <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12062/gender-differences-at-critical-transitions-in-the-careers-of-science-engineering-and-mathematics-faculty">real-world faculty searches</a>, not just <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418878112">hypothetical ones</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98126/original/image-20151012-17811-prtvej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The taller red bars show the higher percentage of women offered jobs compared to the percent in the original applicant pool. The data reflect real-world tenure-track searches at research-intensive universities. Source: National Research Council (2010)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Miller, NRC data</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These results collectively suggest some biases are weakening over time, consistent with <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">other related evidence</a>. For instance, the bachelor’s-to-PhD pipeline <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037">no longer leaks</a> more women than men, as it did among college graduates in the 1970s.</p>
<p>This mixed literature tempers the paper’s claims about strong gender bias. But obviously, the paper’s central goal was not to systematically review literature on gender bias, but rather to present studies of reactions to evidence of bias. </p>
<h1>Communicating controversial research with caution</h1>
<p>Understanding how bias varies can help target action and <a href="https://theconversation.com/some-good-news-about-hiring-women-in-stem-doesnt-erase-sex-bias-issue-40212">use limited resources wisely</a>. Nevertheless, failures to carefully communicate this nuanced research can easily unravel progress. </p>
<p>In 2014, for instance, Cornell University professors Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci wrote <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/opinion/sunday/academic-science-isnt-sexist.html">a New York Times op-ed</a> about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">their 67-page review</a> of literature on women in academic science. The full-length review was rigorous and expansive in scope. But the op-ed was a disaster in science communication.</p>
<p>The NYT wrote the headline “Academic Science Isn’t Sexist,” which ignited <a href="http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2014_11_06/caredit.a1400279">understandable outrage</a>. Ceci called the headline “sensationalistic” and “offensive” in an email to me. He explained the headline was inappropriate because their review, “reported some areas of sex differences (eg, tenure being harder for women in biology).”</p>
<p>Ceci stands by the conclusion of “largely gender-fair outcomes for professors,” but also agrees the exceptions are important. Based on the best current data, remaining challenges include <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102172">sexual harassment</a>, bias in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4">teaching evaluations</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">science mentoring</a>, and gender stereotypes about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1261375">innate genius</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797615598739">creativity</a>. My own research <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000005">spanning 66 nations</a> also shows robust implicit stereotypes associating science with men, even in <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-people-think-man-when-they-think-scientist-how-can-we-kill-the-stereotype-42393">supposedly “gender-equal” nations</a> like Sweden. The NYT op-ed should have done more to explicitly discuss these notable problems. </p>
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<p>The new PNAS study shows that men, on average, are less likely to believe this evidence of gender bias where it exists. And that’s a concern, considering men are the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">current majority of STEM professors</a>. But it’s also a concern if the evidence of gender bias is overhyped. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.147">Overhyped claims</a> could make these fields <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.10.004">unattractive to women</a> or even make people less likely to believe evidence of bias when it does exist.</p>
<h1>Pushing the debate forward</h1>
<p>The new study affirms we all have bias to varying degrees. So no one should feel smug for being free of bias or impugn others because of it. </p>
<p>In my case, I should interrogate how my identity as a gay white male liberal academic shapes my judgments. I doubt I can ever be truly free of my biases. But I can help minimize them by seeking to learn from those with different views.</p>
<p>Progress in science requires actively engaging in and learning from debate with others, even if we may find their views offensive. Civil discussion can be challenging with controversial topics such as gender bias. But, to flourish, the science needs the debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Miller receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Men are harsher critics of research that reports evidence of gender bias in STEM fields, while women find it more compelling. How can we deal with the reality when we’re biased about bias?David Miller, Doctoral Student in Psychology, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/474462015-10-05T09:32:39Z2015-10-05T09:32:39ZWhat fewer women in STEM means for their mental health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97109/original/image-20151002-23105-urwnr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C885%2C3380%2C2514&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Being made to feel you don't belong in your chosen field is stressful.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-204331165/stock-photo-picture-of-woman-with-no-entry-sign.html">Woman image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“You’re in engineering!?! Wow, you must be super-smart…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It has been over 10 years since I was a first-year engineering undergraduate student; but when I remember the time a fellow female student made this comment, I can still feel a visceral, bodily reaction: my muscles tense, my heart rate increases, my breath quickens.</p>
<p>Comments like these on the surface appear as compliments. But when unpacked, they reveal subversive attitudes about women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).</p>
<p>As I think back to this encounter, there are two aspects that stay with me. First was the surprised, skeptical tone of the other student’s voice that conveyed it was surprising and unusual (or, to put it more crudely, freakish) that I was in engineering. Second was the attitude that since I was in engineering, this could be explained only if there was something exceptional or outstanding (or, once again, freakish) about me. Women remain an underrepresented group in STEM. In Canada, women account for <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11874-eng.htm">23% of engineering graduates</a> and <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11874-eng.htm">30% of mathematics and computer graduates</a>. In the United States, women are <a href="http://www.aauw.org/research/solving-the-equation/">12% of the engineering and 26% of the computing</a> workforce.</p>
<p>The reality is that STEM professions are most commonly male and it remains surprising when these professional roles are held by women. The large gender imbalance means that women may naturally feel they’re outsiders at school and at work. This situation is often uncomfortable and mentally demanding, when even just showing up and doing your job comes with constant social stresses and anxiety. Ironically, the difficulties that they (we) encounter often dissuade the next generation of women from joining us. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle that we need to break. </p>
<h2>Fight or flight, designed for quick response</h2>
<p>Because of their underrepresentation, women in STEM often regularly question their place in these professions. When things feel uncomfortable – like when I was confronted with that comment a decade ago – our brains can overinterpret the situation as an imminent threat. And there’s an evolutionary reason for that physical response.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.intechopen.com/books/new-insights-into-anxiety-disorders/an-evolutionary-perspective-on-anxiety-and-anxiety-disorders">Stress</a> is an adaptive response to perceived threats. It’s how the body <a href="http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/depression">reacts to these situations</a>. Anxiety is stress that lingers after the immediate threat is gone; it’s experienced as a feeling such as <a href="http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety">embarrassment, fear or worry</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1312&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1312&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1649&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97084/original/image-20151002-23065-1yids01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1649&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fight-or-flight is a physiological response.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Fight_or_Flight_Response.jpg">Jvnkfood</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This stress response evolved in human beings to help us navigate a wild, dangerous and unpredictable world. When faced with imminent danger, like a pouncing tiger, our bodies have evolved an automatic reaction to help us react fast. Stress hormones are released, the heart beats harder and faster, breathing becomes rapid and muscles tense, ready for action. </p>
<p>This automatic response prepares our bodies for possible actions: <a href="http://cmhc.utexas.edu/stressrecess/Level_One/fof.html">fight or flight</a>! From the perspective of evolutionary adaptation, it’s in our best interests NOT to distinguish between life-threatening and non-life-threatening dangers. Act first, think later. In the African wilds in which early humans roamed, the consequence of underreacting could mean death.</p>
<h2>Good during lion attack, less good during daily life</h2>
<p>In modern life, we don’t have to worry much about attacks from lions, tigers or bears. But adaptive mechanisms are still very much a part of our brain’s biology.</p>
<p>The flight-or-flight response is intended to be short-term. The problem comes in when stress becomes a daily part of life, triggering a physiological response that’s actually detrimental to health over the long term. Repeated and long-term releases of the stress hormone cortisol cause <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2013.190">changes in brain structure</a> that leave individuals more susceptible to anxiety and mood disorders, including depression. When exposed to long-term stress, the brain structure called the <a href="http://sciencenordic.com/how-stress-can-cause-depression">hippocampus shrinks</a>, affecting one’s short-term memory and ability to learn.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97092/original/image-20151002-23065-mn8n11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Subtle cues can make female students feel marginalized.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/14108928496">World Bank Photo Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Messages you don’t belong can be stressful</h2>
<p>These physical stress responses can unfortunately run at a constant low level of activation in people who are made to feel like they don’t belong or aren’t good enough – such as women in STEM. Social situations like my undergraduate encounter – and their ramifications – are a part of day-to-day life.</p>
<p>The effects of stress on women in STEM fields are often already obvious during their undergraduate studies. A study of women in engineering at the University of Waterloo has shown that female students tend to have <a href="http://www.educationaldatamining.org/EDM2013/papers/rn_paper_34.pdf">lower overall mental health</a>. Women in STEM fields are more likely to report <a href="http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2014/737382/abs/">higher levels of stress and anxiety</a> and <a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2007/10/depression-in-t.html">higher incidences of depression</a>.</p>
<p>Sadly, the percentages of women working in these fields have remained stagnant for decades. In 1987, women represented <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/gender-inequality-in-the-sciences-its-still-very-present-in-canada/">20%</a> of the STEM workforce in Canada. In 2015, their numbers remain <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/gender-inequality-in-the-sciences-its-still-very-present-in-canada/">unchanged at 22%</a>. In the United States, the reality is very similar, with women representing <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/stem_factsheet_2013_07232013.pdf">24%</a> of the workforce. Confrontational reactions like “You’re in engineering!?!” communicate the message that as a woman, one may not belong in the social group of engineering. The brain perceives these kinds of social interactions as threatening, dangerous and stressful.</p>
<p>The social cues that women may not belong in male-dominated STEM fields can often be subtle. For example, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016239">researchers</a> have shown that the presence in labs of objects considered stereotypical of computer science, such as Star Trek and video game posters, are perceived as stereotypically masculine and can dissuade women from expressing interest in topics like computer programming.</p>
<p>Moreover, seemingly complimentary “Wow, you must be super-smart!” comments also communicate an even more troubling possibility that, in order to belong in this group (of men), as a woman, one must be exceptional. Women + Engineering = Super Smart.</p>
<p>But what if a female student is not exceptionally intelligent? What if she is only ordinarily smart? Or, even more troubling, what if she does not believe that she is smart at all? In her mind, she becomes a sheep in wolf’s clothing, an impostor who has tricked those around her into accepting her into a group where she does not belong. From the brain’s perspective, this is literally interpreted as being in the lion’s den.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97093/original/image-20151002-13364-1rvke7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women can flourish in STEM, but it can mean shutting out the noise.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usaidasia/12628956494">USAID Asia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>STEM should welcome everyone</h2>
<p>So what can be done? If we are to increase the participation of women in STEM fields, we must make workplace and educational environments inclusive. In order to thrive, female students need to believe that they belong in technical professions, in both academia and the private sector.</p>
<p>The social marginalization caused by gender imbalances in STEM programs can be mitigated. Targeted <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037461">intervention programs</a> that foster social belonging and coping mechanisms to deal with stress and threat can help women develop skills to handle the mental challenges caused by gender inequality and help women integrate into their male-dominated environment.</p>
<p>Connecting female students with female professional <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/100/2/255/">role models</a> such as mentors or instructors has also been extremely effective at improving women’s self-concept and commitment to STEM.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"647190058928336896"}"></div></p>
<p>Finally, campaigns like the #Ilooklikeanengineer hashtag disrupt our common stereotyping of STEM professionals and help support a cultural shift.</p>
<p>The rates of female representation in STEM will not change overnight. It will probably be at least another generation before parity becomes an achievable target. But it’s through changing these attitudes and stereotypes that we will reduce some of the social stresses on women in these fields, helping women choose STEM as a career path, stay in these fields, and most importantly, remain healthy and happy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Drake is affiliated with the Toronto & Region Conservation Authority. </span></em></p>Being underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math means women can be made to feel they don’t belong, with long-term mental health consequences.Jennifer Drake, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/472392015-09-09T17:17:36Z2015-09-09T17:17:36ZLack of women professors means research grants are skewed towards men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94255/original/image-20150909-18658-152blly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trying to readdress the balance. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lecture via Matej Kastelic/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/gender-balance-women-are-funded-more-fairly-in-social-science-1.18310">new research</a> has shown that when women working in the social sciences apply for a research grant, they are just as likely as men to win funding. But while there is equality in the success rate, the fact that so few women are in professorial positions applying for grants means men still get more research money than women in the social sciences. </p>
<p>The role and inclusion of women in science has attracted considerable attention recently. Rightly so. Cambridge physicist <a href="https://theconversation.com/post-16-education-must-be-reformed-to-tackle-damaging-arts-science-divide-46995">Athene Donald has recently highlighted</a> that girls’ early years and their socialisation as they develop, is likely to have a role in women’s subsequent careers. However, we also need to focus on how women succeed once they have embarked on a career in academia.</p>
<p>One important measure of success is the receipt of competitive research funding. Our analysis, published in <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/525181a">a Nature comment piece</a>, considers whether men and women submitted similar numbers of applications, were equally successful and were awarded grants of similar size by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). </p>
<p><a href="http://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/Gender_statistics_April_2014.pdf">Previous studies</a> show that women’s success rates are worse than men’s in European Research Council funding: for example, in physical sciences and engineering, women submit 17% of grant applications and receive 15%. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863053">While data</a> from the Wellcome Trust show that women in biomedical sciences receive significantly smaller grants than men. </p>
<p>We compared how well women and men fare in the social sciences. It is true to say that women are better represented across the social science disciplines than they are in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects, but we remain far from equality. </p>
<p>Overall, we found that between 2008 and 2013, accounting for academic position, success rates for women and men were equal and the size of grant awarded was similar at the ESRC. Indeed, women aged under 40 were significantly more successful than men and received slightly larger grants. </p>
<p>However, overall women received only two-fifths of the ESRC funding over the period. This meant women received 41% of the £127m distributed. The underlying reason for this was the representation of women in senior positions. While there was a similar number of men and women in non-professorial social science positions in the UK, less than a quarter of professorial positions were held by women, according to data from the <a href="http://www.heidi.ac.uk/">Higher Education Statistics Agency</a>. Women professors were as successful at winning grants as their male counterparts, but because there were fewer of them, far more grants were awarded to men.</p>
<h2>Structural impediments</h2>
<p>Fortunately, much is already being done in the UK to try and redress this imbalance. The Research Councils have published a concordat which includes expectations for both themselves and the institutions that receive their funding to <a href="https://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy/concordat-to-support-the-career-development-of-researchers/concordat-equality-and-diversity">promote diversity and equality</a>. Notably, under Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, the National Institute for Health Research took bold steps to link eligibility for funding to performance in the <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/">Athena Swan programme</a>, which awards institutions and departments for their work supporting women.</p>
<p>Even so, we argue that there are structural impediments to gender equality in academia. Across UK academia as a whole, less than a fifth of all professors are women and, <a href="http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/9/6/The_position_of_women_and_BME_staff_in_professorial_roles_in_UK_HEIs.pdf">according to the University and College Union</a>, at the current pace of change it will take 39 years for women to be represented equally among the UK professoriate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94258/original/image-20150909-18669-11ukjmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leading the way: Ruth Luthi-Carter, chair of neurobiology of behaviour at the University of Leicester.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Leicester.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Men still do not have the same work-life balances or child or parental care responsibilities as women, so unless structural changes are implemented within universities and funding agencies, change will be slow. Like many universities, our own institution, Leicester, has recognised the need to rebalance – and we are taking practical steps, including championing women’s roles, revising our promotion criteria and encouraging both women and men to recognise and react to inequality. </p>
<p>Gender equality issues must be embedded in work practice and women’s career progression should be supported by promotion criteria that allow for career breaks and part-time working by focusing more on the quality than the quantity of publications and grant awards.</p>
<p>Our research also includes a series of recommendations, including that all funding agencies should submit their data annually to independent scrutiny of gender differences in applications, success rates and award sizes. The funding agencies and universities should also come together to discuss these and other strategies.</p>
<h2>Global action</h2>
<p>We are therefore supporting the UN global <a href="http://www.heforshe.org/">HeForShe movement</a>, which aims to engage and encourage one billion men and boys to take action against the gender inequality which women face across the world. Ten prime ministers, ten CEOs of global companies and ten universities have been chosen worldwide to act as HeForShe impact champions to lead this initiative, and we are proud both that the University of Leicester is one of those ten, and that the UN will be launching its UK initiative at Leicester later this month. This seems particularly fitting, as when the university was founded in 1921, eight of the first nine students were women. </p>
<p>There is no good reason for women to be under-represented in senior posts. It is clearly not a result of innate differences in intelligence or ability. Gender equality is not a matter of being “nice” to women. In the higher education context it means ensuring that the very best people go into and remain in research and teaching for the benefit of society. Women in our universities are just as imaginative and talented as men but, sadly, our academic system has worked against them since its very beginning. We really must change this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Boyle was CEO of the Economic and Social Research Council from 2010-14.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy K Smith receives funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henrietta O'Connor, Kate Williams, and Nicola Cooper do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is more equality for women winning social research grants, but men still get more overall.Paul Boyle, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of LeicesterHenrietta O'Connor, Professor of Sociology, University of LeicesterKate Williams, Senior Research Fellow in Nursing, University of LeicesterLucy K Smith, Senior research fellow in health services research, University of LeicesterNicola Cooper, Professor of Healthcare Evaluation Research, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/462232015-08-26T04:03:11Z2015-08-26T04:03:11ZStrong networks can dilute sexism in higher education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92793/original/image-20150824-17793-utvty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Powerful, supportive academic networks can offer women a buffer against sexism and patriarchy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122466/gender-bias-plagues-academia">academia</a>, as in other professional spaces, women are fighting an uphill battle against <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/diversity/2014/03/acceptable-sexism-unconscious-bias-in-the-workplace/">sexism</a>. Sometimes this manifests in subtle but insidious ways such as <a href="http://time.com/3836977/un-women-wages-and-careers/">unequal pay</a> and biased hiring practices. In other cases, women have to fight off blatant <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102172">harassment and even assault</a>.</p>
<p>In many countries, there are also <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-08-12-universities-remain-a-bastion-of-gender-discrimination-too">far more men</a> in senior academic positions than women.</p>
<p>Even <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/feb/13/female-academics-huge-sexist-bias-students">students</a> discriminate against female professors and rate them as <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-female-faculty-get-bonus-points-to-correct-for-gender-bias-in-student-evaluations-43166">less competent</a> than their male counterparts. This is hugely galling: surely higher education should be one place where brain always triumphs over brawn?</p>
<p>For all these problems, I feel at home in academia. I see my future here and I’m actively recruiting more female scientists into my research group. But am I just setting them up for a lifetime of struggling to find happiness in academic institutions?</p>
<p>I don’t think so - because while gender inequality is a pervasive problem that may take generations to fix, there is a home for women in academia right now. Here are a few useful strategies that can help individual women thrive in higher education spaces.</p>
<h2>Networks are buffers</h2>
<p>For starters, do not underestimate the value of strong networks. In the postgraduate space, picking one’s supervisor and research group carefully can provide an excellent buffer against institutionalised sexism.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that women should automatically pick a woman supervisor. My MSc and PhD were supervised by the <a href="http://academic.sun.ac.za/botzoo/cherry/">same man</a> and my PhD co-supervisor was a <a href="http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/staff/professors/mmanser.html">woman</a>. My postdoctorate was supervised by <a href="http://sitemaker.umich.edu/thore.bergman/home">a man</a>. I didn’t pick any of these mentors based on their sex, though.</p>
<p>Here’s how I chose them: they are all excellent scientists. They publish well, appear to enjoy their jobs and clearly enjoy expanding their mental horizons. They are not threatened by the success of younger academics like me and always appeared to hardly notice my sex. </p>
<p>Another crucial element was that all my supervisors had other - happy - women in their research groups. For example, the research group I’d joined for my postdoc was co-directed by an outstanding female <a href="https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/jbeehner/">scientist</a> and the female postgrads outnumbered the males.</p>
<p>Research has <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131613">revealed</a> that dominant males who are at the top of their professional games don’t tend to bother with sexism. They know they are good at their work and don’t need to pick on women to soothe their own egos.</p>
<p>This makes evolutionary sense. Low ranking olive baboons and even hamsters will try to relieve the stress of being on the losing end of most fights by <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=bxlZTWCRXt0C&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=%22redirected+aggression%22+%22subordinate+males%22&source=bl&ots=0ho6vhpGE9&sig=CY6uzVC1pCxe-ucz3IdKht2DkGU&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22redirected%20aggression%22%20%22subordinate%20males%22&f=false">redirecting their aggression</a> towards soft targets. </p>
<p>So if at all possible, pick a supervisor who is clearly successful, always learning and works with active young male and female researchers. </p>
<h2>Find your niche</h2>
<p>Even as a postgraduate student, it can be difficult to carve out a unique research niche. Your supervisor is calling a lot of the shots and his or her research interests often dictate yours.</p>
<p>But these constraints shouldn’t stop you from asking good, incisive questions. Look at data differently and explore beyond your mentor’s instructions. It’s important to inject original thoughts into your Masters and doctoral research and to work towards uniqueness. This will help you build your own brand as an academic.</p>
<p>For women, these efforts are another buffer against sexism. Making your own name, creating your own direction and developing your own expertise makes you an asset. Despite the patriarchal mindset that dominates most large institutions, the idea of gender equality is at least on their radar.</p>
<p>Give them a reason to support you: shout at them through your work. </p>
<h2>Speak up</h2>
<p>These buffers won’t completely protect women academics from sexism. We are living and working in a male dominated society. I’ve learned that in some meetings, men will be addressed by their titles while I and other women are called by our first names. Occasionally, I catch a man staring at my chest instead of listening to me talk.</p>
<p>Increasingly, I call the perpetrator out on their “isms” or phobias. If you hate conflict, start small. Politely point out someone’s bias and gradually build up the courage to take them on when they are completely out of line.</p>
<p>Sometimes you will have to grit your teeth - the good news is that many older offenders are probably just a moment away from retirement.</p>
<h2>A fight worth having</h2>
<p>Trying to change entrenched sexism from within a system can feel overwhelming. Many women are also scared that promoting themselves will be seen as arrogant and may even earn them <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/01/women-and-work">lower ratings</a> from colleagues.</p>
<p>Some are suffering from <a href="http://theprofessorisin.com/2012/12/11/the-imposter-syndrome-or-as-my-mother-told-me-just-because-everyone-else-is-an-asshole-it-doesnt-make-you-a-fraud-a-guest-post/">imposter syndrome</a> and fear that they don’t actually deserve recognition for their success.</p>
<p>Remind yourself why you want to be in academia (for instance, I have an insatiable curiosity about the way animals work). Arm yourself with <a href="http://www.toolsforchangeinstem.org/gender-bias-in-stem/">information</a>, seek advice from those who have been through it all before - and build a strong academic support network. Together, we may be able to boot sexism out of research labs, lecture halls and administrative ivory towers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46223/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aliza le Roux receives funding from the National Research Foundation, and is part of the South African Young Academy of Science, a society seeking to bridge the gap between science and society. She is affiliated with the University of the Free State, Qwaqwa.</span></em></p>While gender inequality is a pervasive problem in academia, there is a home in universities for women right now. Here’s how to make it a happy one.Aliza le Roux, Senior Lecturer , University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/412292015-05-12T20:12:21Z2015-05-12T20:12:21ZSexism in science: one step back, two steps forward<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81309/original/image-20150512-19528-yrye5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The call for a male author on a paper was met with outrage from within the scientific community and the general public.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keoni Cabral/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two postdoctoral researchers <a href="https://twitter.com/FionaIngleby/status/593408243772297216/photo/1">took to the internet</a> last month after having their research paper rejected for publication on <a href="http://retractionwatch.com/2015/04/29/its-a-mans-world-for-one-peer-reviewer-at-least/">laughably sexist grounds</a>:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"593408243772297216"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/317225">Fiona Ingleby</a> of the University of Sussex, and <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/head-ml">Megan Head</a> of ANU were advised by an anonymous reviewer from journal <a href="http://www.plosone.org/">PLoS One</a> to “find one or two male biologists to work with”. </p>
<p>The reviewer supposes that having a male co-author would improve the paper, reasoning that men work more hours per week on average, “due to marginally better health and stamina”. </p>
<p>The reviewer added that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps it is not so surprising that on average male doctoral students co-author one more paper than female doctoral students, just as, on average, male doctoral students can probably run a mile a bit faster than female doctoral students.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The sound of foreheads being slapped rung out across the globe. The internet was ablaze with <a href="http://jezebel.com/female-scientists-told-to-get-a-man-to-help-them-with-t-1701245887">righteous feminist fury</a>, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/catferguson/women-scientists-share-their-stories-of-sexism-in-publishing">collegiate sympathy</a> and words of support. </p>
<p>The results of Head and Ingleby’s research would perhaps fail to surprise the reviewer as well: after surveying 244 people with PhDs in biology, they found that on average men had better job prospects than women. They suggested institutional gender bias was to blame, though perhaps the reviewer might put that down to women’s “natural” disadvantage.</p>
<p>PLoS One has since <a href="http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2015/05/01/plos-one-update-peer-review-investigation/">sincerely apologised</a>, sacked the reviewer, sent the manuscript to a new editor and called for the resignation of the Academic Editor who handled the review. </p>
<h2>One step back</h2>
<p>This incident confirmed two things for me: first, that sexism is alive and well within the scientific community; and second, that we’re making progress in its rectification. </p>
<p>Deplorable as the review was, its discussion and the attempted mollification of the wronged parties suggest reasons for optimism. To me, it is an indicator of very real progress within the scientific community. </p>
<p>The dominant assumption used to be that scientific research is self-correcting, and therefore incapable of bias. It was thought that the process of scientific research enables, or ought to enable, a “<a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/%7Euctytho/dfwVariousNagel.htm">view from nowhere</a>”. This is the notion that science is neutral, so it doesn’t matter who does the research because the results will be the same. </p>
<p>In living memory, arguments have floated around in the mainstream that science doesn’t need social diversity because of its <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/">inbuilt neutrality</a>. This assumption squashed the potential for honest confrontation of bias within scientific research.</p>
<p>Since the mid-1990s there has been an <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/meta-analysis-of-gender-and-science-research-synthesis-report.pdf">upward trend</a> of both qualitative and quantitative research into gender segregation within science, as well as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-can-break-free-from-sexism-in-science-41110">ongoing efforts</a> to address the existing gender imbalance. </p>
<p>Gender in science has become an academic discipline in its own right, producing <a href="http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/links.html">primary research</a> as well as countless historical, philosophical and sociological insights from universities across the world. Head and Ingelby’s work is in fact a part of this burgeoning discipline. </p>
<p>Various organisations have formulated initiatives to address the now well-documented gender imbalance in science. The Royal Society, for example, has taken it upon itself to become better informed about <a href="http://blogs.royalsociety.org/in-verba/2014/09/24/gender-balance-among-university-research-fellows/">its own gender bias</a>. At home, the <a href="https://www.science.org.au/sage-forum">Science in Australia Gender Equity Forum</a> is engaged in continuing discussion as to how to address this problem. </p>
<p>Stanford science historian <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/schiebinger.html">Londa Schiebinger</a> is the project director of a huge and ongoing research project called <a href="https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/">Gendered Innovations</a>, which was founded in 2009. The project provides governments and the scientific community with practical methods for sex and gender analysis in science. </p>
<p>Schiebinger has been talking about the relationship between gender and science since 1989. She <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141107-gender-studies-women-scientific-research-feminist/">remarked recently</a> that even twenty years ago, “nobody wanted to listen to me”. Progress might be <a href="https://theconversation.com/study-claiming-gender-equity-in-science-technology-maths-doesnt-reflect-real-life-40314">slow</a>, but the cry for gender diversity certainly isn’t being ignored anymore. </p>
<h2>A kind of progress</h2>
<p>The public’s reaction to the PLoS One review is testament to our commitment to eradicating gender bias within the scientific community. The backlash caused by this event was not because we want to see these two particular researchers published, but because we will not abide their rejection purely on the grounds of their gender. </p>
<p>Ironically, even the blameworthy PLoS One reviewer is concerned about gender diversity in scientific research. The reviewer was concerned that the research may be in danger of “drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically biased assumptions”. </p>
<p>The justification for the reviewer’s request that a man co-author the paper was patently ludicrous. Yet among the garden-variety sexist nonsense there lies a glimmer of hope. The reviewer’s comments were pointed particularly at combating potential gender bias. </p>
<p>While this review serves as one among many examples of real and variegated sexism within the scientific community, it also shows how perfectly ordinary it is to show concern or criticise a research paper for potential gender bias.</p>
<p>Over the last two decades, the public and the scientific community have come to understand how diversity enriches the quality, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4575.html">and the very content</a>, of scientific research. Achieving diversity within the scientific community is the best and only way to ensure that inevitable biases within research are recognised and countered. </p>
<p>While the PLoS incident was deplorable, the reception of the review by the researchers, the journal and the broader public reveals just how far we’ve come in our attitudes towards gender and its potential impact on scientific research.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Baitz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sexism still exists in science, but a recent scandal shows that progress is being made.Emma Baitz, Postgraduate student in History and Philosophy of Science, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/408212015-05-03T19:34:38Z2015-05-03T19:34:38ZVideo games make you less sexist? It’s not quite that simple<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80030/original/image-20150501-30696-1uct8hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One narrowly defined study isn't enough to prove that people who play video games are less sexist.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JD Hancock/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest article exploring sexism in academia suggests that <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract">it no longer exists</a>. Some have already grumbled about <a href="http://othersociologist.com/2015/04/16/myth-about-women-in-science/">flaws in the study’s design</a>. But more than that, I simply don’t believe the finding because there is clear evidence that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/30/sexism-in-science-peer-editor-tells-female-researchers-their-study-needs-a-male-author/">sexism still exists</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve also recently heard numerous times via Twitter that playing video games <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0492">makes you less sexist</a>. But I don’t believe that finding either.</p>
<p>This isn’t because either study is poorly designed, or because the samples are biased, or even that the researchers had ulterior motives. I don’t believe either of these studies because no explanation in biology is that simple. Especially when it comes to humans.</p>
<p>Our desire for answers to fall into simplified categories is leading to a more fundamental problem: it’s fuelling the segregation of ideas and breeding public distrust in scientists. And this is bad for everyone.</p>
<h2>Research supports my opinion</h2>
<p>With the <a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/">internet</a> at our fingertips, it is not hard to hunt down a piece of research that will support our worldview.</p>
<p>Arguing with someone about how video games make you sexist? Cite <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213002525">this paper</a>, or <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-009-9695-4">this one</a> or even bring up <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ppm/4/1/47/">this paper</a>. Trying to convince someone that video games <em>don’t</em> make you sexist? No problem! Cite this <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0492">new paper</a>, because surely the most recent research must be most correct.</p>
<p>Then when the articles you cite fail to convince your opponent, you can get down to the nitty-gritty and argue about sample size and experimental design, citing superior knowledge of statistics (this is an argument I commonly receive).</p>
<p>But neither improved statistics nor a doubling of sample size will improve the quality of the questions asked. Let’s take a simple everyday example.</p>
<p>If I leave milk on my front stoop overnight in Sydney during the summer, it’ll spoil before the next morning. We might thus conclude that not refrigerating milk results in spoiling. But that’s not entirely accurate, because if I did the same in Toronto in the winter, the milk would be fine (or maybe even freeze).</p>
<p>It’s not the lack of refrigeration that resulted in the milk spoiling, but the fact that it was not kept at the proper temperature. At a certain point, oversimplifying ideas results in the loss of the crux of the problem and a focus on the refrigerator rather than the temperature.</p>
<h2>Are gamers really more sexist?</h2>
<p>Let’s jump back to the video game paper for a minute. The question the researchers asked is whether playing video games over the long term can affect sexist attitudes.</p>
<p>The argument is that because female characters are <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-009-9637-1">underrepresented</a>, and both sexes are <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-007-9307-0">overly sexualized in videogames</a>, these factors can interact to normalise <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-007-9278-1">sexist views</a>. This hypothesis was previously supported in <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/g4h.2014.0055">short</a> and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103108001005">long-term</a> studies.</p>
<p>In this recent study, the researchers used 824 German adolescents to explore whether continued exposure to video games can affect sexist attitudes over the long term. The participants provided information on how often they played video games, and answered a questionnaire on their sexist attitudes. Three years later, they asked the same students the same questions.</p>
<p>The authors found that individuals that spent more time playing video games were less sexist. I’ve had this result mentioned to me several times. Interestingly, the part of the paper where the authors admit that the effect size was tiny (meaning that the likelihood that this has a real-world effect is low) is never highlighted.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80031/original/image-20150501-30696-1tl5caf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women are often represented in an overly sexualised manner in video games. But does that make gamers more sexist?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Square Enix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Does this result trump all the earlier research (experimental or correlative) that shows that video games can reinforce sexist attitudes? No. What it does do is muddy the waters, demonstrating that the association is not that simple.</p>
<p>But, rather than focusing on the result, we should refocus our attention on the question. If we think about it more closely, the authors are not asking whether video games make adolescents sexist, they’re asking something completely different. </p>
<p>They’re asking whether playing video games affects the sexist attitudes adolescents openly admit to having. And that the video games have more influence on their attitudes than their daily interactions with parents, teachers, friends and peers. Except that they ignored any of these social factors by not including them in the study.</p>
<p>The idea that video games alone can make you anything other than good at “video game-like things” is rather silly. However, through their imagery and player agency, video games may be able to reinforce certain worldviews associated with aggression, dominance and sexism that stem from the social environment individuals occupy.</p>
<p>But that is a completely different and more complex question that the video game literature – and most others – largely does not examine.</p>
<h2>Where should science go from here?</h2>
<p>The problem of oversimplification is not limited to the video game literature or studies of human behaviour. It exists in any field where there is diversity and variation.</p>
<p>For example, there are papers showing resveratrol in wine is <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7117/full/nature05354.html">good for you</a>, while others show <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1868537">no effect at all</a>. Some papers show early morning risers are clearly <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399900/">happier and more productive</a> than late risers, and others suggest maybe Ben Franklin was <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5926/516.abstract?sid=b98bee97-90dd-4f18-9f9b-a3e7ce0ebcde">wrong on that one</a>.</p>
<p>Categorising complex ideas only serves to create cult-like tribes and promotes between-group misunderstanding and animosity. This needs to stop. And all of us need to play our part.</p>
<p>As researchers, it’s fine to explore a question using correlations, as this helps to identify the factors that may be important. That’s only a start, though. Those correlations should be used as a springboard for future experiments that build in greater complexity. It’s irresponsible to leave <a href="https://theconversation.com/clearing-up-confusion-between-correlation-and-causation-30761">correlation looking like causation</a>, and we need to admit the complexity of the world we are exploring.</p>
<p>The media also needs to stop simplifying ideas and presenting them as being black and white. The average individual can understand a complex topic if explained properly. Journalists should strive to provide information on previous studies if they’re reporting new findings. Explaining changes in scientific thought will leave readers with more questions, only serving to whet their appetite for more science and research.</p>
<p>And it’s up to readers to avoid hiding behind selected publications that <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/confirmation_bias.htm">reinforce their worldviews</a>. We can benefit from reading other perspectives, and when we do so, do it with an open mind. We should engage in discussion with individuals with opposing views, not just dive in to arguments and name calling, as this only serves to isolate ourselves from one another.</p>
<p>Once we can all admit that the world is more complex than we’d like to believe, we can finally get to exploring all the various facets that makes the world the wonderful and horrible place that it is.</p>
<p>So after reading <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0492">this paper</a>, do I believe that video games make us less sexist? Nope. And I don’t believe that they make us more sexist either. Nothing is quite that simple.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Kasumovic receives funding from the Australian Research Council for his evolutionary research.</span></em></p>Academic papers are often cherry picked to support our prevailing views. We need to be careful to acknowledge the complexities of many issues explored by science.Michael Kasumovic, Evolutionary Biologist, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/402122015-04-16T10:06:04Z2015-04-16T10:06:04ZSome good news about hiring women in STEM doesn’t erase sex bias issue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78114/original/image-20150415-19648-rhcosv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One study found women twice as likely to be chosen for tenure-track STEM jobs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=101192473&src=lb-29877982">White coats image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientists prefer women to similarly qualified men for tenure-track faculty positions, according to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418878112">a new experiment</a> published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5f6rQfpd68o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The researchers describe their hiring experiments.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cornell University researchers Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci sent narrative summaries of hypothetical male and female tenure-track applicants to 873 science and engineering faculty across the US. Across a wide variety of conditions spanning five experiments, faculty raters selected female applicants over male applicants by a factor of two to one.</p>
<p>The new experimental results echo earlier real-world data about faculty hiring. A <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12062/gender-differences-at-critical-transitions-in-the-careers-of-science-engineering-and-mathematics-faculty">2010 National Research Council report</a>, for instance, found that the proportion of women among tenure-track applicants increased substantially as jobseekers advanced through the process from applying to receiving job offers in six STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78041/original/image-20150415-24618-11qldkm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The taller red bars show the higher percentage of women offered jobs compared to the percent in the original applicant pool. Source: National Research Council (2010)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12062&page=7">David Miller, NRC Data</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new results that paint a rosier picture of gender equity in STEM hiring, however, seem to contradict earlier studies such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">a 2012 PNAS study</a> that found gender biases favoring male college graduates applying for lab manager positions. </p>
<p>However, Williams and Ceci <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2015/04/13/report-faculty-prefer-women-for-tenure-track-stem-positions">argue</a> that these results aren’t contradictory at all. Gender bias may not occur when applicants’ records “are clearly strong, as is the case with tenure-track hiring,” <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418878112">they write</a>. However, bias may emerge when evidence for applicants’ competence is more mixed. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036734">recent quantitative synthesis</a> of 136 other gender bias experiments supports the researchers’ argument. The review found that raters preferred men for male-dominated jobs such as architects and electricians when ratees were described as having average or ambiguous competence (meaning raters received mixed information that suggested both low and high competence). However, “neither gender was favored when ratees were highly competent.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78115/original/image-20150415-31663-11yd5c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women fare differently in various disciplines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/clement127/15423533057">clement127</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the quantitative review also found that “bias varied substantially across studies,” meaning that some situations favored men while others favored women. The new PNAS study contributes to this research base by identifying an academic hiring context that favored women. </p>
<p>Authors of the PNAS study <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">argue that</a> some other academic contexts such as grant funding and tenure review are also not biased against women, but the authors nevertheless <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/opinions/williams-ceci-women-in-science/">acknowledge that</a> “women may encounter sexism before and during graduate training.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">earlier 2012 PNAS study</a>, for instance, found that science professors offered less mentoring to female than male college graduates. The hypothetical female students received less encouragement to stay in their field and pursue research careers. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, subsequent studies suggest that many women persist in STEM despite these biases. </p>
<p>Academic fields that have greater gender bias do not have fewer women at the PhD or faculty level, according to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000022">a new experiment</a> involving 6,548 professors. For instance, biases against white women were <em>larger</em> in health sciences than in the male-dominated fields of engineering and computer science. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78118/original/image-20150415-31681-wafr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We’ve got this.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nottinghamtrentuni/14713500051">Nottingham Trent University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women and men indeed now persist in STEM at equal rates from the bachelor’s to PhD degree, according to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037">my recent study</a> with Jonathan Wai of Duke University Talent Identification Program. </p>
<p>We found gender gaps in STEM persistence among college graduates in the 1970s and 1980s, but not among more recent graduates. A recent <a href="http://www.cgsnet.org/sites/default/files/PR_DIMAC_2015-04-06_final.pdf">Council of Graduate Schools report</a> further supports this conclusion. </p>
<p>I agree with Williams and Ceci when <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/04/08/1418878112.DCSupplemental/pnas.1418878112.sapp.pdf">they say</a> these findings don’t “minimize the importance of anti-female bias where it exists.” But the findings do suggest that biases in graduate mentoring do not substantially impede women’s progress in STEM. </p>
<p>In fact, women’s representation in math-intensive STEM fields is now <em>higher</em> at the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037">PhD</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">assistant professor</a> level than bachelor’s level.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78042/original/image-20150415-24650-1arb2kd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Source: WebCASPAR Integrated Science and Engineering Resource Data System (2014). Figure by Miller and Wai (2015). “pSTEM” stands for physical science, technology, engineering and mathematics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet women are still scarce in some STEM fields, as Melinda Gates noted in a tweet referencing my study.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"570285946626822144"}"></div></p>
<p>Women are underrepresented in these fields because of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100614541236">factors</a> such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1261375">cultural beliefs</a> that operate at the bachelor’s level and below, not because of bias in tenure-track hiring or graduate mentoring.</p>
<p>These remaining representation gaps mean that policymakers should not use studies such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037">mine</a> and the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418878112">new PNAS paper</a> to say their work is done. Rather, these studies simply inform <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/03/03/essay-calls-ending-leaky-pipeline-metaphor-when-discussing-women-science">a new way forward</a>. </p>
<p>The PNAS study shows that <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/04/08/1418878112.DCSupplemental/pnas.1418878112.sapp.pdf">continued efforts</a> to correct anti-female biases in tenure-track hiring are likely misguided. The message has already gotten through at that level. Resources spent on those efforts would instead be better directed toward contexts that <a href="http://www.aauw.org/research/solving-the-equation/">continue to show</a> bias against women.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78119/original/image-20150415-31660-4y5dbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Biases must be removed at every stage in science.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=85654114&src=lb-29877982">Lab image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evidence of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">anti-female biases in science mentoring</a> should still be taken seriously, of course, regardless of implications for understanding numeric representation. This realization raises the question: should diversity initiatives focus more on increasing women’s numeric representation or improving the treatment of women already in these fields?</p>
<p>I don’t have the answer to that question, but these new studies help provide data-informed strategies for tackling these issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Miller receives funding from National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Figuring out points along the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math pipeline where women are doing ok can help focus efforts to improve sex ratios where they can make a difference.David Miller, Doctoral Student in Psychology, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/373702015-02-10T01:23:48Z2015-02-10T01:23:48ZRate my professor’s gender?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71542/original/image-20150210-24687-1vilyug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When rating their classes, students use different words to describe male and female professors</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalassemblyforwales/6937339042">National Assembly for Wales</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A friend of mine calls me professor of genius studies. It’s a sort of slip of the tongue, as I teach in gender studies, but it‘s also funny because everyone knows that genius is not associated with gender studies, and I’m the wrong gender anyway. A genius has electrified hair, big glasses, problems talking with mere mortals, and is white and male. Disney confirms this repeatedly, as does Christine Battersby in her 1989 study <a href="http://philpapers.org/rec/BATGAG">Gender and Genius</a>.</p>
<p>Now the anonymous online ranking system, <a href="http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/">RateMyProfessors.com</a>, has been subjected to algorithmic sifting to find that genius is a term students apply to male professors at least three times the rate for women, depending on the discipline. Brilliance is also something men do better in university lecture theatres, according to these ratings, and in music male professors are seven times more likely than female professors to be virtuoso performers. That was by over 3 million students. Consistently more knowledgeable and smart, men are also handsome, cute, charming, funny and sensitive.</p>
<p>So we know what’s coming next. As this is a gender mapping, women professors are consistently more likely to be described as feisty, bossy, aggressive, shrill, condescending, rude. You get the picture. We are also ahead on that vanilla descriptor, nice.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71446/original/image-20150209-13716-icpuqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Female professors: much nicer than male professors, according to their students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://benschmidt.org/profGender/#%7B%22database%22%3A%22RMP%22%2C%22plotType%22%3A%22pointchart%22%2C%22method%22%3A%22return_json%22%2C%22search_limits%22%3A%7B%22word%22%3A%5B%22nice%22%5D%2C%22department__id%22%3A%7B%22%24lte%22%3A25%7D%7D%2C%22aesthetic%22%3A%7B%22x%22%3A%22WordsPerMillion%22%2C%22y%22%3A%22department%22%2C%22color%22%3A%22gender%22%7D%2C%22counttype%22%3A%5B%22WordsPerMillion%22%5D%2C%22groups%22%3A%5B%22department%22%2C%22gender%22%5D%7D">Screenshot: Gender and Teacher Reviews</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These fascinating results are enabled through the work of Assistant Professor <a href="http://benschmidt.org/profGender/">Benjamin Schmidt</a> from Northeastern University, who released an interactive chart that groups results from about 14 million reviews over a couple of months from RateMyProfessors. It’s easy to use: type in the word and the results will be graphed, split by gender across discipline and per million words.</p>
<p>Schmidt notes that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>not all words have gender splits, but a surprising number do. Even things like pronouns are used quite differently by gender. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, even the definite article, the, is applied more to men than women. Note that these results are only distributed by the gender of the rated professor, not by the gender of the reviewing student. And they can also be sorted by whether the review was positive or negative overall.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71543/original/image-20150210-24700-178jvdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Walt Disney’s stereotypical Professor Ludwig Von Drake. You get the picture - despite him being a duck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100629171814/disney/images/3/3a/NewPicture6-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Ludwig_Von_Drake&h=574&w=755&tbnid=nSYbgySlNhWVFM:&zoom=1&docid=IV9tLhrORXgSxM&ei=qE7ZVO_ZEcOymAXtxoG4Cg&tbm=isch&ved=0CB8QMygCMAI">Disney.wikia.com</a></span>
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<p>This graphical mapping of language used by American students to rate their professors tells us that gender is repeatedly constructed through the language we use to differentiate behaviours and values, and that women still face systematic obstacles in academia.</p>
<p>This usable dataset has been noticed by <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/02/07/3620571/rate-my-professor-sexist/">online media</a> commentators and compared to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/is-the-professor-bossy-or-brilliant-much-depends-on-gender.html?abt=0002&abg=0">other studies</a> that demonstrate that teaching evaluations, citation, promotion and research funding are all highly gendered practices. </p>
<p>This is part of a larger narrative about women and work, about the structural hostility when women enter workplaces that are traditionally occupied by men. Such workplaces have already normalised the authority and historic contributions of men – often they are literally built for men, as in the cases where women’s toilets <a href="http://alga.asn.au/site/misc/alga/downloads/womeninpol/ALGA_WomenInPolitics.pdf">have to be added</a> to buildings (<a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-women-in-politics">including parliaments</a>).</p>
<p>The mass introduction of women into higher education as academics and as students is only relatively recent. In my university, for example, the ban on employing married women was rescinded only in 1976. These structures take generations of making visible, naming and countering.</p>
<p>It’s still sobering to see evidence of the ways gender – or should we be calling it misogyny - is so deeply embedded in language. Australian feminist <a href="http://dalespender.com.au">Dale Spender</a> has been talking about this since the 1970s: how language is male-centred (man comes to stand in for humanity); words reserved for women are derivations/deviations from the word for men (actress, woman); the sexual double standards (stud and slut); and the lack of words to name sexism, rape, sexual harassment, child abuse – all words which have entered our vocabulary since that time. </p>
<p>Spender attributes this lineage of English partially to the history of dictionary, but the impact is that it limits the ways in which we can construct our social world and speak to each other as gendered social beings.</p>
<p>Because this is just raw data, though, we can find other things about gender in it as well – you can search for whatever word you want, and its antonym. Women are more likely to be caring, helpful and encouraging, as we might expect in a society that continually associates women as carers, but we’re also more likely to be uncaring, unhelpful and discouraging – again consistent with the higher expectation of women as carers.</p>
<p>With a different set of terms, though, women are much more likely to be described as feminist, creative, fabulous, amazing, wonderful. Men are consistently ahead on crude, old, vulgar, outdated, misogynist. </p>
<p>I wonder what would happen if we made this the lead story: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Women professors are fabulous, amazing, wonderful; men crude, vulgar, old. </p>
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<p>It doesn’t fit with the stories we tell about women, or universities, but it’s there in the data as well. And it doesn’t contradict the systemic oppression story; in a whole different way it supports it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Bartlett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A friend of mine calls me professor of genius studies. It’s a sort of slip of the tongue, as I teach in gender studies, but it‘s also funny because everyone knows that genius is not associated with gender…Alison Bartlett, Associate Professor in Gender Studies, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.