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Invited speakers at neuroimmunology conferences in 2016 were disproportionately male, and not because male scientists were producing higher quality work, according to a new study. Instead, qualified female scientists were overlooked by organizing committees. Robyn Klein, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine, of neuroscience, and of pathology and immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discussed the findings, published online April 18 in Nature Immunology.
[...] There's a growing body of research showing that female scientists' contributions to their fields are often not reflected in the number of speaker invitations they receive, and that this under-recognition hurts their careers and slows the pace of scientific progress. While this bias may be unconscious, data from sources such as BiasWatchNeuro -- founded in 2015 to track the proportion of female conference speakers relative to the proportion of female faculty in the relevant field -- show that it is widespread. Encouragingly, the data also show that bringing such biases to light helps to reduce their impact.
Robyn S Klein, et al. Speaking out about gender imbalance in invited speakers improves diversity. Nature Immunology, 2017; 18 (5): 475 DOI: 10.1038/ni.3707
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Sunday April 23 2017, @06:08PM (2 children)
You could summarize the entire topic to "Weren't they merely diversity hires?" Clearly, enough are, such that the ones who got there on actual merit and ability are being negatively affected by the commonly accurate stereotype.
Whether true or not, this is exactly the problem of pushing specifically for "more women", instead of pursuing genuine equality and ignoring gender entirely. At least some women are diversity hires, which damages the reputations of the qualified women are damaged.
"What evidence?", asks another poster. Personal experience. I know one woman who blatantly exploited her gender and ethnicity to remain in a top-ten PhD program where she did not belong. She was quite open about her strategy - it didn't embarrass her at all - although it enraged the qualified women in the program. She then explicitly played the gender card to land a professorship.
Over the past 30 years or so, programs and companies have responded to the unceasing pressure to increase the number of women in STEM. Factually, this has meant affirmative action. I read an article just last week, where a woman in (iirc) mechanical engineering stated that her gender was observably worth about one grade in her classes. Last semester, I was specifically asked by my school administration (off the record, of course), to pass one more student in my programming course, because the highest failing student was a woman, and the school needs the numbers. (FWIW, I refused)
The result of 30 years of desperately trying to push more women into STEM is that every woman is now regarded skeptically. Every woman now faces the unspoken question: are you real, or are you diversity? Really, who wants to deal with that throughout their entire career? I think this is the reason that there are now fewer women in CS than there were 30 years ago. Affirmative action, in whatever form, is inevitably counterproductive.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @09:24PM (1 child)
> I know one woman who blatantly exploited her gender and ethnicity to remain in a top-ten PhD program where she did not belong.
And yet when mediocre white males do the same, no one ever assumes qualified white males are there just because of exploiting the old boys club.
I wonder why that is?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @02:36PM
Because there isn't affirmative action for white males.