{"id":793,"date":"2015-08-03T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=793"},"modified":"2015-08-03T09:00:53","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T13:00:53","slug":"women-in-science-myths-and-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/women-in-science-myths-and-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in Science: Myths and Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tWhy are there still so few women in the top levels of academic science despite equal numbers of women and men at the undergraduate and graduate levels? Let\u2019s examine some myths and biases about women in the sciences and consider some facts that help explain the current situation. Then I\u2019ll close with some good news!\n\n\n

Myths and Biases about Women in Science<\/h2>\n\n\nIn a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em><\/a>, Joan C. Williams and Jessi L. Smith note that there are distinct patterns of gender bias that affect female scientists:\n\n\n
    \n\t\n\n
  1. The first pattern, which is also a myth, is the belief that women are less competent at science. The impact of this bias is that two-thirds of female scientists in a recent study reported a double standard when going for promotions. They had to provide more evidence of their skills than their male colleagues did to be seen as equally competent.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n
  2. Another pattern is a familiar double bind for women leaders in many sectors\u2014walking the \u201ctightrope\u201d of being seen as too feminine to be competent or too masculine to be likable with very little room to maneuver between the two extremes. The authors quoted one of the women scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as explaining, \u201cTo get ahead here, you have to be so aggressive. But if women are too aggressive, they\u2019re ostracized, and if they\u2019re not aggressive enough, they have to do twice the work [to prove themselves].\u201d Three-fourths of the women<\/a> in one study reported experiencing this double bind.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n
  3. A third pattern and myth is that if you are a mother, you cannot also be a high-achieving scientist. Williams and Smith explain that the operating bias is that to be a high-achieving scientist, you must be \u201ctirelessly and single-mindedly focused on research\u201d without the distractions of a family. In a recent survey, two-thirds of the female scientists<\/a> reported experiencing this bias, and female scientists are more than twice as likely to be childless than American women in general. Can it be that talented women are opting out of academic leadership positions in the sciences and choosing other careers because the price to stay in science is too high?<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n\n

    Training as a Scientist\u2014Structural Barriers for Women<\/h2>\n\n\nMolecular biologist Sara Clatterbuck Soper offers some insights into the ways that gender bias impacts training opportunities for women scientists. In an article in the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, she explains that training in the sciences resembles the medieval apprentice system\u2014scientists must spend a lengthy period of time training in the lab of an established principle investigator who has near-absolute authority in hiring. This apprenticeship is the pathway to a senior position, and eventually to having your own lab. The problem is the leader\u2019s near-absolute hiring authority. Clatterbuck Soper cites a 2014 study<\/a> that found that male scientists more often hire other men for coveted training positions. This study reported that the more prominent the men, such as Nobel Prize winners, the larger the gender gap in hiring. The elite male professors in the study employed 24 percent female postdoctoral researchers compared with 46 percent in labs run by women, and 36 percent female graduate students compared to 53 percent in labs run by women.\nBecause training in the sciences requires high-quality apprenticeship and mentoring and so few women are lab leaders, there is a shortage of training opportunities for aspiring women scientists. Clatterbuck Soper explains that women represent half of the graduate students in biosciences but only 21 percent of full professors.\n\n\n

    Good News<\/h2>\n\n\nWhat is the good news in all of this? Did you notice that half of all undergraduate and graduate students in science are women? That is good news, and it debunks the myth that women are not interested in the sciences. What is needed now is a change in the biases, attitudes, and practices that limit opportunities for talented women in the sciences.\n \nPhoto credit: Image courtesy of Photokanok at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[225,338,339,513,549,551,570,612,634],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-gender","tag-leaders","tag-leadership","tag-science","tag-stem","tag-stereotypes","tag-technology","tag-women","tag-workplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}