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-inneuroscience/#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 questions
Use 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.