1. Gender
and
Science
"Woman teaching geometry“
Illustration at the beginning of
a medieval translation of Euclid's
Elements (c. 1310 AD)
2. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
3. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
9. Discrepancies
• Women faculty are:
– paid less
– promoted more slowly
– receive fewer honors
– hold fewer leadership positions
• These discrepancies not based on:
– productivity
– significance of their work
– any other measure of performance
Slide from: http://best.berkeley.edu/~aagogino/papers/WIA_findings.pdf
10. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
11. Biases against women,
by men and women
• “Overall, scientists and engineers who are
women… have had to function in environments
that favor—sometimes deliberately but often
inadvertently—men. Accumulation of
disadvantage becomes especially acute in more
senior positions.” [my emphasis]
• “Well-qualified and highly productive women
scientists also contend with continuing
questioning of their own abilities in science and
mathematics and their commitment to an
academic career.” *my emphasis+
Taken from: http://best.berkeley.edu/~aagogino/papers/WIA_findings.pdf
12. Science faculty’s subtle gender biases
favor male students
• “Faculty participants rated the male applicant *for
a laboratory manager position] as significantly
more competent and hireable than the (identical)
female applicant.“
• “These participants also selected a higher starting
salary and offered more career mentoring to the
male applicant.”
• “…female and male faculty were equally likely to
exhibit bias against the female student” *my
emphasis]
Moss-Racusin CA, Dovidio JF, Brescoll VL, Graham MJ, Handelsman J. Proc Natl Acad
Sci U S A. 2012 Oct 9; 109(41):16474-9
13. Impact of gender on the review of curricula vitae
• “…both male and female academicians were
significantly more likely to hire a potential male
colleague than an equally qualified potential
female colleague. “
• “Furthermore, both male and female participants
were more likely to positively evaluate the
research, teaching, and service contributions of a
male job applicant than a female job applicant
with an identical record.” *my emphasis+
Rhea E . Steinpreis, Katie A . A nders, and Dawn Ritzke. Sex Roles, Vol. 41, No s. 7/8,
1999.
14. IAT: Women and science
• Male
– Man, Boy, Father, Male, Grandpa, Husband, Son, Uncle
• Female
– Girl, Female, Aunt, Daughter, Wife, Woman, Mother,
Grandma
• Science
– Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Math, Geology, Astronomy,
Engineering
• Liberal Arts
– Philosophy, Humanities, Arts, Literature, English, Music,
History
15. I am strongly biased
• “Your data suggest a strong association of Male
with Science and Female with Liberal Arts
compared to Female with Science and Male with
Liberal Arts.”
• Automatic association between Male and Science
– Responded faster when:
• Male names and Science words were classified with the
same key
• Female names and Liberal Arts words were classified with
the same key
16. Really bad: Thinking you are unbiased
when you really are
• “When people believe that they are objective,
they feel licensed to act on biases whose
influence they may have otherwise suppressed
due to personal and social inhibitions.“
• “To the extent that individuals harbor stereotypic
thoughts and beliefs, as many do (Devine et al.,
1991), such a state of self-perceived objectivity
may increase gender discrimination.”
E.L. Uhlmann, G.L. Cohen / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2007)
17. Women’s own biases toward
themselves
“Participants were given evidence that contrast
sensitivity ability was either an ability that men
were more likely to have (male advantage or
“MA” condition) or an ability that showed no
gender difference… “
“In the MA condition, women believed they
had to earn a score of at least 89 percent to be
successful, but men felt that a minimum score
of 79 percent was sufficient to be successful...
This finding suggests that women hold
themselves to a higher standard than their
male peers do in “masculine” fields.”
Why so few: http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/whysofew.pdf
18. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
19. What qualities are valued?
• “…qualities mentioned in recommendation letters for
women differ sharply from those for men”
– Female candidates described in more communal (social or
emotive) terms
– Male candidates in more agentic (active or assertive) terms
• “…letter writers included more doubt raisers when
recommending women”
– "She might make an excellent leader“
– "He is already an established leader“
• "The more communal characteristics mentioned, the
lower the evaluation of the candidate."
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2010-11-letters-women-jobs.html#jCp
21. Our public image Why are
these
bad?!?
• Too kind? Too nurturing? Too agreeable?
• Not aggressive enough? Not dominant Why are
these
enough? Not forceful enough? good?!?
22. Arbitrary and subjective
evaluation criteria
• Characteristics that are often selected for and are
believed to relate to scientific creativity— namely
assertiveness and single-mindedness—are given
greater weight
• Other characteristics may be more vital to
success in science and engineering
– flexibility, diplomacy, curiosity, motivation, dedication
• At the same time, assertiveness and single-
mindedness are stereotyped as socially
unacceptable traits for women. [my emphasis]
Slide from: http://best.berkeley.edu/~aagogino/papers/WIA_findings.pdf
23. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
24. Women need to have children before
they reach a certain age
Taken from: http://rba-online.com/ivf/index.php?Egg-Freezing-Fertility-Preservation-19
25. (Not) having children
• 48% of tenure track
women do not have
children
Taken from: http://geknitics.com/2009/11/the-leaky-pipeline/
26. Scientists Want More Children
• Female scientists at top universities
– Have fewer children than their male colleagues
– More likely to say that, due to the science career,
they have fewer children than they want
• Yet having fewer children than desired has a
greater impact on men's life satisfaction
• Young scientists who have had fewer children
than wished are more likely to plan to exit
science entirely
Ecklund EH, Lincoln AE (2011) Scientists Want More Children. PLoS ONE 6(8): e22590.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022590
27. Old, outdated system
• “Structural constraints and expectations built
into academic institutions assume that faculty
members have substantial spousal support.
Anyone lacking the work and family support
traditionally provided by a “wife” is at a
serious disadvantage in academe.”
• “36% of men, compared to only 8% of women,
have spouses who stay at home”
Taken from: http://best.berkeley.edu/~aagogino/papers/WIA_findings.pdf
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/25887/title/Fixing-the-Leaky-
Pipeline/flagPost/42165/
28. “Nearly sixty-hour workweeks, combined with a
disproportionate share of household labor and
child care, make young women think twice
about careers in academic science”
Londa Schiebinger and Shannon K. Gilmartin:
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/JF/feat/schie.htm Mason and
Goulden put it in their 2004 Academe article, “Do Babies Matter? (Part II)
29. Don’t forget the men
• “The nearly one-third of those studied in the
egalitarian category talked in their interviews
of many of the same pressures that female
scientists with families experience -- especially
"extreme hours and intricate schedules.“”
• “Many discussed the need to sacrifice
(especially sleep and leisure time) to try to
make it all work.”
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/22/sociologists-consider-how-
male-scientists-balance-work-and-family#ixzz2C3w18ZdT
Inside Higher Ed
30. We can’t afford to lose these people
• “*Mason’s and Goulden’s] recent research
indicates that women PhDs turn away from
academic science because they face a culture
that precludes time and responsibility for
home, family, and life.“
• “Considering the cost of training PhD
scientists, this is an expensive proposition for
science and society.”
Londa Schiebinger and Shannon K. Gilmartin:
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/JF/feat/schie.htm Mason and
Goulden put it in their 2004 Academe article, “Do Babies Matter? (Part II)
31. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
32. Gender equality closes the math gap
Iceland!
USA
Guiso, L., Monte, F., Sapienza, P., and Zingales, L. 2008. Culture, Gender, and Math. Science
320 (May 30): 1164.
33. What makes a country gender equal?
• The Global Gender Gap Index
2012
– economic participation and
opportunity
– educational attainment
– health and survival
– political empowerment
34. Greatest step toward gender equality
in Iceland
• Paid parental leave for everyone, men and
women
35. Academia needs to change
• “When will we start worrying less about the
pipeline's leaks and do more to address the
corrosive nature of the pipe that we funnel
people through?” (Micella Phoenix DeWhyse,
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org)
• Why would you change a system that:
– Favors you?
– You don’t realize needs changing?
36. Overview
• Women are leaving academia
• Why?
– Implicit biases
• What is valued?
– Unique challenges
• Juggling roles
• What to do?
– Change society
– Change our minds
37. You cannot change what you don’t
realize needs changing
• “I give my male colleagues endless grief when
they organize symposia and forget to invite
women speakers. Most women are as well-
respected as their male colleagues, but still
forgotten when invitations are extended and
awards, and other honors, are decided. Ironically,
today’s bias usually results from lack of
attention, rather than from malicious intent. But
the rejoinder of, “Oh, I didn’t notice that I had
invited 20 men and no women” infuriates me…
because I know that all of the young women in
the field do notice.” *my emphasis+
Eve Marder. Current Biology Vol 20 No 10
40. Underrepresentation of women
60
50
Percentage of Women
40
30
20
10
0
Biological scientists Environmental scientists and Computer programmers Chemical engineers Electrical and electronics
geoscientists engineers
Taken from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009, Women in the
labor force: A databook (Report 1018) (Washington, DC), Table 11.
42. Guiso, L., Monte, F., Sapienza, P., and Zingales, L. 2008. Culture, Gender, and Math. Science
320 (May 30): 1164.
43. Report: Beyond Bias and Barriers
• “On the average, people are less likely to hire
a woman than a man with identical
qualifications”
• “People are less likely to ascribe credit to a
woman than to a man for identical
accomplishments”
• “When information or time is scarce, people
will far more often give the benefit of the
doubt to a man than to a woman”
Taken from: http://best.berkeley.edu/~aagogino/papers/WIA_findings.pdf
44. The Impact of Gender on the Review of the
Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure
Candidates: A National Empirical Study
• Participants: 238 male and female academic
psychologists
Rhea E . Steinpreis, Katie A . Anders, and Dawn Ritzke. Sex Roles, Vol. 41, No s.
7/8, 1999.
45. Housework is an academic issue
• “Partnered women scientists at places like
Stanford University do 54 percent of the
cooking, cleaning, and laundry in their
households”
• “Partnered men scientists do just 28 percent”
• “This translates to more than ten hours a
week for women— in addition to the nearly
sixty hours a week they are already working as
scientists—and to just five hours for men”
Londa Schiebinger and Shannon K. Gilmartin:
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/JF/feat/schie.htm Mason and
Goulden put it in their 2004 Academe article, “Do Babies Matter? (Part II)
46. Child care
• “…women scientists do 54 percent of
parenting labor in their households, and men
scientists do 36 percent (“parenting labor”
refers to physical, psychosocial, and
intellectual responsibilities).
• “women who have children within five years
of receiving their doctorate are less likely to
achieve tenure than are men with “early
babies.” “*early *cough cough*]
Londa Schiebinger and Shannon K. Gilmartin:
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/JF/feat/schie.htm Mason and
Goulden put it in their 2004 Academe article, “Do Babies Matter? (Part II)
47. Lower pitch and feelings of power
• “People judge a person whose voice pitch was
lowered as more powerful than the same person
whose pitch was raised (Puts, Gaulin, &
Verdolini, 2006; Puts, Hodges, Cardenas, &
Gaulin, 2007).”
• “Participants who lowered their voice pitch
perceived themselves more as possessing more
powerful traits… and had a higher level of
abstract thinking… compared to participants who
raised their voice pitch”
Lowering the Pitch of Your Voice Makes You Feel More Powerful and Think More Abstractly
Marielle Stel, Eric van Dijk, Pamela K. Smith, Wilco W. van Dijk, and Farah M. Djalal
48. Awful reward schedule
• “…doing research in the biological sciences has become
increasingly plagued by long training periods with little
positive reinforcement. “
• “Therefore, many of our most smart and creative
young scientists find it difficult to understand that they
are making a difference. While women are as stubborn
and smart as men, they may be preferentially
discouraged by a field that denies them, for long
periods of time, the validation of a “job well done”.
Therefore, they, and many able men, leave science to
find that sense of satisfaction elsewhere.”
Eve Marder. Current Biology Vol 20 No 10
49. Not only the U.S.
Taken from: http://www.rensenieuwenhuis.nl/the-leaky-pipeline-of-womens-
academic-careers/
51. What constitutes work?
• “When combined with caregiving hours and
house work, UC women faculty with
children, ages 30 to 50, report a weekly average
of over 100 hours of combined activities (in
comparison to around 86 hours for men with
children).”
• “To lose talented scholars…because of our failure
to provide baseline family responsive policies
seems pennywise but pound foolish.” *my
emphasis]
Staying Competitive, Patching America’s Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences
http://geknitics.com/2009/11/the-leaky-pipeline/
Editor's Notes
| Guys and girls, what is your take on the following topic? | Iremember sending David some draft, and being all apologetic becausethat's just what you do when you are a girl. Then I was really shockedwhen he called me on it because I remember thinking "but what I justsent him was actually really awesome". But pointing out the faults ofyour work is just what you are supposed to do as a girl. I think itsthe same basic thing as when someone says "sorry about the messyhouse" when you come for a visit and everything is shiny-shiny. Whatit really can mean is "Hey, it is pretty self-evident that my houselooks great, I just wanted to tell you that I can do an even BETTERjob than that because I am so awesome". The thing is, other girls canread into that implicit message. Guys just hear "she didn't think shedid a good job". But it doesn't really mean that. It really is,sometimes, like we are speaking two different languages.Like · · Unfollow PostSergey Stavisky This is something I've talked about with several womenneuroscientist colleagues. They've also found themselves doing thisand suspect it's detrimental to their careers because others,especially men, tend to view it as one or more of: 1.) a sign of lackof confidence, 2.) a passive way to ask for praise/reassurance, 3.)poor estimation of the quality of one's own work. I think it's goodfor everyone to be aware of different styles of communication andpresenting of oneself, but until we live in that more enlightenedworld I also think it's prudent to try to avoid doing this.15 minutes ago · Like · 1Heida Maria Sigurdardottir I think you are right, and I am certainlymore aware of doing this now. However, I do want that enlightenedworld. Working on it...11 minutes ago · LikeHeida Maria Sigurdardottir I am also wondering if it is somethingcultural as well, and not just something that has to do with gender. Ithink that Nordic cultures are not as individualistic as U.S. culture,and don't value someone standing out or making a big deal out ofhis/her individual achievements.8 minutes ago · Edited · LikeSergey Stavisky That may very well be; the effect is probably evenstronger in far eastern cultures. In my program there's a reading anddiscussion group run by Profs. Jennifer Raymond, Miriam Goodman, andLu Chen entitled "Gender Issues in Neuroscience" that meets everymonth and talks about just these kind of issues. Maybe something likethat could be started at Brown!5 minutes ago · LikeHeida Maria Sigurdardottir That is actually a very interestingpossibility. Maybe I'll start with a "special issue" journal club.4 minutes ago · LikeSergey Stavisky Cool! I'll forward you the prompts and backgroundreadings from the last few instances of the one here, it might giveyou some ideas of where to start.2 minutes ago · LikeHeida Maria Sigurdardottir Definitely! I'll talk it over with myjournal club "co-director", Michelle Fogerson.about a minute ago · Like
* Preliminary results based on Survival Analysis of theSurvey of Doctorate Recipients (a national biennial longitudinal data set funded by the National Science Foundation and others, 1979 to 1995). Percentages take into account disciplinary, age, ethnicity, PhD calendar year, time-to-PhD degree, and National Research Council academic reputation rankings of PhD program effects. For each event (PhD to TT job procurement, or Associate to Full Professor), data is limited to a maximum of 16 years. The waterline is an artistic rendering of the statistical effects of family and gender.
In the next task, you will be presented with a set of words or images to classify into groups. This task requires that you classify items as quickly as you can while making as few mistakes as possible. Going too slow or making too many mistakes will result in an uninterpretable score. This part of the study will take about 5 minutes. The following is a list of category labels and the items that belong to each of those categories. CategoryItemsMaleMan, Boy, Father, Male, Grandpa, Husband, Son, UncleFemaleGirl, Female, Aunt, Daughter, Wife, Woman, Mother, GrandmaScienceBiology, Physics, Chemistry, Math, Geology, Astronomy, EngineeringLiberalArtsPhilosophy, Humanities, Arts, Literature, English, Music, History Keep in mindKeep your index fingers on the 'e' and 'i' keys to enable rapid response.Two labels at the top will tell you which words or images go with each key.Each word or image has a correct classification. Most of these are easy.Sort items by their category membership. Words in green should be categorized with the green labels. Words in white should be categorized with the white labels.The test gives no results if you go slow -- Please try to go as fast as possible.Expect to make a few mistakes because of going fast. That's OK.For best results, make sure that your monitor is set to maximum brightness and avoid distractions.
Bylur hæst í tómri tunnu. An empty barrel makes the loudest sound.
We used data fromthe 2003 Programme forInternational Student Assessment (PISA) that reports on276,165 15-year-old studentsfrom 40 countries who tookidentical tests in mathematicsand readingCountries with low levels of gender equality had larger gender gaps in mathematics. These results held up even when the researchers controlled for the economic development levels of the countries.The girls’ success in gender equal societies didn’t come at the expense of boys: Everyone’s scores were higher, in both math and in reading.
“Research profiled in chapter 9 shows that people not only associate math and science with “male” but also often hold negative opinions of women in “masculine” positions, like scientists or engineers. This research shows that people judge women to be less competent than men in “male” jobs unless women are clearly successful in their work. When a woman is clearly competent in a “masculine” job, she is considered to be less likable. Because both likability and competence are needed for success in the workplace, women in STEM fields can find themselves in a double bind.” [Why so few: http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/whysofew.pdf]
a difference in average math performance between girls and boys no longer exists in the general school population (Hyde et al., 2008)“On high-stakes math tests, however, boys continue to outscore girls, albeit by a small margin. A small gender gap persists on the mathematics section of the SAT and the ACT examinations (Halpern, Benbow, et al., 2007; AAUW, 2008). Fewer girls than boys take advanced placement (AP) exams in STEM-related subjects such as calculus, physics, computer science, and chemistry (see figure 3), and girls who take STEM AP exams earn lower scores than boys earn on average (see figure 4). Research on “stereotype threat,” profiled in chapter 3, sheds light on the power of stereotypes to undermine girls’ math test performance and may help explain the puzzle of girls’ strong classroom performance and relatively weaker performance on high-stakes tests such as these. ”
The researchers also studied the percentage of students of each sex among the top scorers on the test. In the gender-equal countries, girls made up half or more of those who scored in the top one percent. The sex ratio of top performers is especially important because these students are the ones most likely to excel in careers in science and engineering. Summers had suggested that because of biological differences, it is nearly inevitable that a much higher percentage of these top performers will be boys.
Interestingly, our data suggest that employing others to help with core housework is characteristic of highly productive science faculty (where productivity is defined as total self-reported number of published articles over one’s career) even after rank, gender, salary, and one’s own share of labor are controlled (analysis was limited to scientists in dual-career partnerships). This is true for both women and men—we often find that practices that are good for women’s careers also assist men in reaching their career goals.
“I don’t think these data are conclusive, because the numbers in the figure are also influenced by cohort replacement.”
The second and third points of leakage are at the associate and full professorship stages, where, again, among those married women (both with and without young children) who secured tenure track positions, a disproportionately high number do not advance to the next professional level.Why is this happening? In their responses to the President's Work and Family Survey active UC ladder-rank faculty frequently cited considerable difficulties in achieving a balance between work and family. These difficulties appear to be especially pressing for women faculty. The data collected in this survey has allowed us to isolate one key reason for the leaks in the academic pipeline: the work-family balance.