Dealing with Sexism

One woman’s view

Forms of Discrimination

• Obvious stuff– wage disparity– representation disparity– disparity in upward mobility

• Not so obvious stuff– Implicit Biases

• A stand your ground approach

Representation of Women in Science

• 2003; association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs– half of neuroscience graduate students were female

• 2011 Executive Summary of Neuroscience Graduate, Postdoctoral, & Undergraduate Programs Survey Report – Women represented 51 percent of the applicants, 52

percent of the students admitted, and 56 percent of those who began graduate training in neuroscience

• Women are more successful in entering and staying in grad school in neuroscience

• Women constitute 38 percent of postdoctoral trainees (2011, National Academy of Sciences)

Effect of mentorship?• The percent of female faculty ranged widely in neuroscience

and neurobiology from 0 to 100 percent, although the interquartile range, which spans 86 of the 93 programs, reported from 21 percent to 30 percent female faculty.

• In neuroscience and neurobiology, the percent of female faculty did correlate negatively with median time to degree (r = −0.346), indicating shorter times to graduation with higher percentages of female faculty

• No meaningful correlation (r = −0.002) was found between the percent of female faculty and the percent of female students enrolled in neuroscience and neurobiology or other biomedical fields.

Female faculty trends• Women represented 29 percent of tenure-stream faculty in

graduate programs, a number than has changed little during the past decade. In contrast, women represent almost half (44 percent) of non-tenure-stream faculty members.

• In biology and life sciences, about twice as many jobs go to male versus female PhDs.

• Women spend less time on research and more time on teaching and committee work.

• Women in faculty positions may be more greatly encumbered with extra non-research responsibilities as a result of their rarity and the desire to have a balance of males and females on administrative committees

Seniority and Advancement

Senior faculty

Junior Faculty Senior Faculty

Salary Disparities are as bad in science as everywhere else

Even for Psychologists

2013 Life Sciences Salary Survey- “The Scientist” By Chris Palmer and Kate Yandell | November 1, 2013

Publication Differentials

• Among highest impact journals, still major gender disparities

• Only one-in-five papers published in Nature Neuroscience had a female author in 2006, slowly changing.

• Known differences in publication output vs. quality. Male scientists publish more

• H-index, measuring citations, is biased by volume

http://women2.com/where-are-all-the-women-in-neuroscience/#8rCs2qxXvPQzbkjJ.99

Gender Differences in Publication Output: Towards an Unbiased Metric of Research Performance

PLOSone Symonds et a, December 27, 2006 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000127

Quantity corrected data show greater citations for women

There is also evidence that in the lower quartile of publications rates women are cited more, suggesting that males who are not productive stay in science more than females

Bias in Grant Reviews

Implicit biases

• Assumption of incompetence – biologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden of Stanford “men

are assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise.”

• Verified in randomized double blind study:– Moss-Racusin et al. Science faculty's subtle gender

biases favor male students. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Oct 9;109(41):16474-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1211286109.

• Science faculty from research-intensive universities (N-127) 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.

• 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.

• Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent

• Preexisting subtle bias against women played a moderating role, such that subtle bias against women was associated with less support for the female student, but was unrelated to reactions to the male student.

Implicit Bias data

Implicit Bias assumptions• Women are less technically and/or

mathematically adept• On papers, the male is the senior author• With couples, the trailing spouse assumption• Assumption of gender inequality in balancing

work/family • Pregnancy means reduced commitment to

career- wait for a family• “Not like me” or “not like the stereotype”

considerations in leadership

“Shoulds” we are taught• Don’t be too assertive: “Female scientists who are

competitive or assertive are generally banished by their male colleagues…. an aggressive competitive spirit matters less to scientific success than curiosity, perseverance and self-confidence.”

• Don’t be too opinionated : Women tend to try to reach consensus.

• Don’t ask for recognition- wait to be noticed• Be humble and modest. Don’t brag.• Be polite: Don’t point out bad behavior.

Explicit Biases by “Leaders”

• The Larry Summers Hypothesis named for the former Harvard president who suggested that the paucity of top women scientists might be due to lack of “innate aptitudes.”

• Sexual objectification, eg by this AAAS member Dario Maestripieri

Things we can do

• Fight ourselves– reject the inner nice girl– Recognize and fight your own implicit biases – Focus on your goals and follow that with confidence

• Fight the system – Call out bad behavior in others; Become “Uppity

women” – Make up for losses created by others– Make yourselves and others aware of discrimination

Rejecting your inner nice girl

• Don’t be too assertive – Perceived as whiny when asking for things; Quietly

stew; present problems and hope others will be sensitive enough to do the right thing. They won’t.

Don’t be quiet. State what you want. Be clear about solutions. Speak pleasantly with utter confidence

– “Women spend less time on research and more time on teaching and committee work”

Say no to busy work that doesn’t help your career

Rejecting your inner nice girl

• Don’t be too opinionated– Women tend to try to reach consensus. Stop it. Stand your ground, with pleasant

confidence- esp. grant reviews and search committees

Speak in statements, not questionsUse authoritative language. No “kinda”

Rejecting your inner nice girl

• Be humble and modest. Wait for others to notice you. Get out there. Organize conferences. Organize

seminars, symposia. Invite other women. Ask questions in scientific meetings. State your

opinions clearly in meetings. Write controversial review papers and commentaries.Use initials instead of your first name if you have to. Teach your students to speak assertively. Teach them

to have tough skin.

Rejecting your inner nice girl

• Be polite: Don’t point out bad behavior. Laugh along with it.

• Some of the reasons we don’t point out bad behavior:– getting labeled as a troublemaker, affecting future prospects– reluctance to litigate- anxiety, time, and long term

consequences– fear of overplaying the sexism card– Embarrassment, especially with sexual harassment– likelihood of being castigated for speaking out

Fight the system

• CALL THEM OUT– In print….– In person…– “Im sorry, but it almost sounded as if you were asking me

about whether having children would affect my work- I must have been mistaken as that would be illegal. What were you saying?

– “It sounds you are assuming this person is not technically adept enough to do this research. Why are you making that assumption? I didn’t hear you wonder about that for this male applicant…or are you assuming women can’t do math?”

CALL THEM OUT

– “I noticed that the scores for male grant applicants are consistently better than for females, especially among the male members of this review committee. I think we all need to re-examine our assumptions here and think about hidden biases. For example, it has been shown that women are consistently assumed to have less technical expertise even when the hard evidence shows otherwise. ”

– “It sounds like you are assuming this person isn’t qualified because she comes to the university with her husband. Have you actually read her science or are you just making that assumption because she is married to a scientist? because that would be illegal discrimination”.

CALL THEM OUT

– I can’t help but notice that you haven’t considered any women on this list for promotion, a job, admission, etc. I see lots of qualified women- here are some names.

– How much are the males in my department at the same level making? That’s what I want to get paid.

– I would be very concerned to learn than women in our department are compensated less than men. Have we examined that yet? because if so we have a serious liability risk…..

• and not so nicely:– “That is a f**ing sexist piece of crap. Are you looking for a

lawsuit? happy to give you one.

The point of calling out bad behavior. Oct 17 2012 Published by Janet D. Stemwedel under Academia, Diversity in science, Professional

ethics, Women and science

I can't pretend to speak for everyone who calls out sexism like Maestripieri's, so I'll speak for myself. Here's what I want:• I want to shine a bright light on all the sexist behaviors, big or small, so the folks who have

managed not to notice them so far start noticing them, and so that they stop assuming their colleagues who point them out and complain about them are making a big deal out of nothing.

• I want the exposure of the sexist behaviors to push others in the community to take a stand on whether they're cool with these behaviors or would rather these behaviors stop. If you know about it and you don't think it's worth talking about, I want to know that about you -- it tells me something about you that might be useful for me to know as I choose my interactions.

• I want the people whose sexist behaviors are being called out to feel deeply uncomfortable -- at least as uncomfortable as their colleagues (and students) who are women have felt in the presence of these behaviors.

• I want people who voice their objections to sexist behaviors to have their exercise of free speech (in calling out the behaviors) be just as vigorously defended as the free speech rights of the people spouting sexist nonsense.

• I want the sexist behavior to stop so scientists who happen to be women can concentrate on the business of doing science (rather than responding to sexist behavior, swallowing their rage, etc.)

Take Matters Into Your Own Hands. • We all live with these biases ourselves- we can only fight them by

making the implicit explicit, and non-defensively raise the implicit bias issue at every possibility

• Build the compensation into your lives• Grant reviews- women are being scored worse. So improve your

score- and fight for it.• Women are getting fewer papers in worse journals- so give them the

benefit of the doubt. Promote papers by women. Be appropriately critical of papers by authors who are arrogant but not necessarily better.

• Hire women. Check on gender equity pay in your own department. offer to do the study. Call the university’s equal opportunity office and ask them to demand the figures and publish them.

• Train women. Teach them how to speak with confidence and to fight for themselves.

The Mama Polar Bear

• Warm, fuzzy, nice, busy- but ferocious when you mess with her or her cubs.