Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract

by renaudg • 9 years ago

120 107 9 years ago

So basically men and women prefer women to gain tenure in STEM fields as shown in this graph[0]? Can we now close the "no women in stem" meme finally?

[0] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360/F1.expansion.html

Veen• 9 years ago

The study shows that the gender bias at the point of tenure approval is the opposite of what is claimed by some interest groups. That doesn't prove that gender bias isn't a factor in the number of women in STEM fields.

Some fields are majority male, and some fields are majority female. There are two possible causes: that women and men have, on average, different preferences, or that there is a bias problem earlier in the process than the point at which tenure is considered.

There is evidence that men and women do have different preferences and so we'd expect to see a gender imbalance in some fields. But we should still try to ensure that anyone with the ability and the inclination is able to enter the career path of their choice — that means schools, families, and the media not discouraging girls and boys from entering "non-typical" fields, something these studies don't address.

They do, however, show that the way many ideologically motivated individuals go about achieving their aim of gender balance is based on misconceptions about the world and is therefore likely to be counter-productive.

tictacttoe• 9 years ago

STEM positions have a long pipeline with appreciable attrition along the way. Any losses upstream propagate down stream so it's somewhat obvious that we'd have less women in physics national lab positions if we have less women studying physics in general.

People need to address the issue at each stage of the pipeline. I would argue that early stage imbalances are even more important than late stage imbalances (post-graduate) because upstream imbalances necessarily propagate downstream but not vice versa.

majos2• 9 years ago

I don't think so. I think the everyday experience for female academics still lags behind that of male academics. If you're an undergrad in an unfamiliar hard class it can be tricky to approach a male fellow student without risking misinterpretation of romantic interest; if you're applying to grad school, letter writers are conditioned to talk about women in different ways ("diligent", not "brilliant", maybe); if you're a grad student choosing an advisor, you never really know if the (probably guy) you're choosing has predatory instincts underneath (most don't but enough do); if you're presenting work at a conference, navigating after-conference social activities while being awkwardly hit on gets old fast.

This comes from me talking to friends who are women in CS. It made me realize that as a dude in CS I have an interesting advantage of not being noticed when I walk into a room.

The field has made progress but there are still real frictions that make the everyday experience worse for women, even if the balance has shifted during the big decisions. So it may shake out as an advantage when applying for faculty positions or grad schools, but it's probably not an advantage the rest of the time. I don't think the former compensates very well for the latter.

lumberjack• 9 years ago

None of that stuff is because of bias though. That is just the result of being in a field dominated by the other gender.

cristianpascu• 9 years ago

Have you ever considered things that men have to deal with and are not being able to put them in terms of 'being male in the X industry/community/field"?

This is not to minimize anything a woman has to go through, but let's, at least, not compare as if it's on equal terms. If we're able to talk about women issues at all, isn't that because women and men are different? Why compare it so easily and uni-dimensionally?

BTW, what about cases where a woman approaches a man about a technical matter, but with a _romantinc_ interest? Where's the real danger in that? We, as grown ups, should have the tools to dismiss politely romantic interests. It's the same case between men and men/women, as it is between women and women/men. It's part of life. The expression 'unwanted advances' is by far the craziest accusation one could make to a person. Man or woman.

romanovcode3• 9 years ago

People like you are given gold and they will whine it's too heavy.

The graph clearly shows that women are prefered in STEM, what more proof do you need?

vim_wannabe• 9 years ago

romantic interest

Heh, I don't know about other STEM fields but I remember a lady attending a computer science freshman social event once. There were very few women there as the majority of women in CS are in HTI. After a while she said to my friend, "Why is everyone such a nerd."

She left the field, men were at fault.

learnstats2• 9 years ago

There are evidently few women in STEM and this data doesn't contradict that.

It's a consequence that hiring practices should favour women who are equally qualified on paper, because they have likely overcome more barriers in practice and, all other things being equal, are better hires.

romanovcode3• 9 years ago

should favour women

This is sexism right here.

golergka• 9 years ago

It's a consequence that hiring practices should favour women who are equally qualified on paper, because they have likely overcome more barriers in practice and, all other things being equal, are better hires.

I want to argue against this from a purely utilitarian standpoint, where we care about getting better hire, and don't care about any ethical implications. I think your logic is just bad math.

You're right, and women have more barriers to entry into STEM. And if some barriers are already removed (as this study suggest), I can assume that others still exist. Let's make the numbers simpler, and assume that these barriers make it 2 times harder for a given woman to get into some experience level (I don't know real numbers anyway, and they don't matter).

However, when we observe the effect of these barriers, we simply see that there are 2 times more men on that level than women. That's the whole effect. Statistically, if a woman had 2 times less chance of getting through, and there are already 2 times less women than men, then we already see the full effect of this barrier: there's no evidence that there should be some hidden variable to explain this barrier.

However, if we would know that women's barrier makes it 10 times as harder, and still, there are only 2 times as many men as women, then we would need some other data to explain this; namely, that these women are actually 5 times as good as the men.

But we don't know that. The whole knowledge about these barriers that we have comes from the outcome: we see that there are 2 times as many men as women, and that's how we assume (correctly, I think) that there is a barrier. But if we start from this outcome data, we can't through some magic come back to it and add a hidden variable - it's just a logic loop, and a strange one: we see data, make conclusions from observations, and from these conclusions change our observation of this very data to see it as incomplete, without help of any data points outside this original observation. How could such logic be correct?

danieltillett2• 9 years ago

I am not too sure I would agree with this statement from the abstract: "These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in academic science.” It might be less worse to be a woman, but in the same way it is better to lose a leg below the knee than above the knee.

IshKebab• 9 years ago

Very interesting. I presume this isn't a blind test though, so could there be a "ooo they're testing for sexism, better pick the women!" factor? Or did they account for that somehow?

Edit: Skimmed it and they did go to significant lengths to disguise their hypothesis. Details on page 2 of the PDF.

forestdev• 9 years ago

Without this being a double-blind experiment, than it is highly questionable. People over-compensate for bias if you tell them you're testing their bias. The fact that the abstract makes no mention of this is highly suspect.

gaius3• 9 years ago

Blind recruiting had some unintended consequences http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

wskinner• 9 years ago

If you had read the paper, you would have found that they tested and rejected the idea that reviewers were overcompensating due to guessing what was being tested. In Experiment 5, they sent single resumes to reviewers and asked them to rate on a 1-10 scale. Female candidates still scored significantly higher.

billfruit• 9 years ago

Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering departments.

seanmcdirmid2• 9 years ago

China has similar, if not worse problems, as the USA. The lab I worked for in Beijing made lots of effort to attract female researchers, and it was still very lopsided.

programmertote• 9 years ago

From my graduate CS classes in the US, most women are from foreign countries. I notice the same in other US grad schools as well. From that, I am led to believe that women from developing nations (which kind of includes China) still choose STEM careers (most likely for practical purpose of making money).

MrBuddyCasino2• 9 years ago

It is. In countries where women have the freedom of choice due to political and economical circumstances, the gender imbalance is more pronounced.

Basically, most women choose to not pursue engineering if they don't have to (unfortunately, I'm glad we have some women at the office).

hamax• 9 years ago

This is often repeated but the data is way more noisy than this comment implies.

For example this chart for Asian countries does have Iran on one side and Japan on the other, but it also have Korea way higher than Japan and Cambodia way lower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields#/media/Fi...

In europe Norway has the fewest women in stem and Croatia the highest, but there are a lot of cases where the correlation isn't there. Hungary is very low and Luxembourg is very high. Ireland and Italy are high but Slovenia is low.

https://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/...

Correlation definitely exists but there are a lot of other factors at play too.

Tehnix2• 9 years ago

In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards STEM, but even then it varies.

Take for example the first source[0], which only has a difference of 962 women to 1082 men accepted into the scientific faculty. At DTU[1] it varies more, although anything with Bio, Environment or Medicin in the name will be skewed more towards women.

I guess my point is: why do we insist there is some inherent bias against someone in society, if there is not a 50/50 split (which would in itself be weird)? If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things.

Disclaimer: I should probably say that the above of course only applies to Denmark, and I cannot talk on behalf of the situation in the US.

[0] http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-optagelse/optage...

[1] https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...

[2] https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilli...

EDIT: Added source on first claim about more women being educated.

xienze• 9 years ago

If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things.

Because that would require people to acknowledge that the theory that everyone is a blank slate with equal capabilities and that any differences in outcome are as a result of some sort of systemic oppression might not be entirely correct.

annabellish7• 9 years ago

The danger there is in trying to explain a complicated social phenomenon with "it's free, so why wouldn't they do it?"

There's very little suggestion that the reason there aren't more women in tech is because they can't afford it. In reality, it's a thousand tiny factors from a thousand people, none/few of them actively trying to do harm. As an offhand, personal example, my sister isn't in tech because she was told CS "wouldn't be her thing" despite being just as good as any of the boys. Because of that, and similar discouragement, she ended up not going into tech whereas she otherwise _might_ have.

It's all statistical, lots of "maybes", "mights", and "coulds", but it adds up over the population. There may well be dispositions which align primarily along gender bounds, but there's not much indication this is one - but neither is it an organized conspiracy. It's just the sum total of thousands of tiny factors.

talmand• 9 years ago

Be careful there or Google will fire you.

godelski3• 9 years ago

I think the idea of a (near) 50/50 split is that if there were absolutely no biases or differences then you would see approximately this distribution.

But we don't. We do know there are social biases, and thus these are being scrutinized much more. Certainly there can biological biases, but is is absurd to believe that is the only factor involved. My guess is that there is a whole complicated mess of problems and not an easy one (or even dozens) answer that accounts for these differences.

savanaly• 9 years ago

I've heard a theory for explaining that that goes like this:

1. choosing a career path you're not interested in can be considered a luxury

2. women tend to be less interested in computer science

3. people in the "first world" tend to have more luxuries of all sorts since they are wealthier

4. thus, percentage of women in STEM anti-correlates with GDP-per-capita

marchenko• 9 years ago

The simulation of an academic job search used in this study is not very much like a real academic job search. This study was well designed, but it is harder to do a faithful blind replication of the hiring process in academia vs the public or private sector because job searches are much rarer, and most of the applicants are known - at least by reputation - by most of the evaluation committee - their future coworkers.

The researchers made a strong effort to obscure the goal of the study, but if you are an academic participating in an artificial candidate search, you are likely to suspect that one of the variables being tested is either sex, race, or both. The experiment where evaluators rated a single candidate addresses this somewhat, but even in that case the participants are almost certain to have known that there was no job search in progress, and very likely to have realized that there was a socially desirable response possible to be given at no cost. By no cost, I mean that this person is not going to show up and take space and resources that could go to your preferred candidate/collaborator.

pbnjay• 9 years ago

Study from 2014. I really wonder how it has changed in 2017+

rdtsc3• 9 years ago

Research on actual hiring shows female Ph.D.s are disproportionately less likely to apply for tenure-track positions, but if they do apply, they are more likely to be hired, sometimes by a 2:1 ratio.

I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc. Not just lip service but change the stories, the cartoons, movies, games etc. For too long in popular culture, starting early on girls are just princesses, then then later just a romantic interest side-kick. I noticed with my own daughter, she really wants identify with bad guys in the cartoons because even though they are naughty they have the coolest toys, rule the world and tell their minions what to do. But she finds it hard because the majority of the "cool" roles are taken by boys.

Yes by the time it comes to apply for tenure track positions, girls have already been told verbally and non-verbally many times -- "this is not for you, probably".

I remember in Eastern Europe in primary education, girls and women were more interested in math than boys. I was getting help with calculus homework from them. My high school CS teacher was a professional programmer before and she was an inspiration many girls and to boys alike, including me. She had a large book on Pascal and if we were good we could stay after school and do exercises from it. So I have seen it work in practice -- it is possible to have a culture and attitude where girls see math, science and CS as appealing disciplines.

On the other hand, I think it is worth to acknowledge that maybe there is also an element were women just don't want to do CS or math. Even if they had positive role models. I know we all think tech is super awesome, getting paid to do what we love, implement and develop cool algorithms, etc. But what if sitting in a cubicle inverting binary trees all day, mostly in isolation, doesn't appeal to others, and maybe those other are more likely to be women. Is that controversial to say? I imagine it might be soul crushing for some even if they were promised to get RSUs, options and a large salary.

dnautics2• 9 years ago

I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc

I keep being reminded of Phillip greenspun's quip:

"A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of landing a $35,000/year post-doc job?"

_jal3• 9 years ago

Like a lot of things he says, it is a cute just-so story, but obscures more than it reveals. Just a few things to try to slot in: differences in participation in "male" professions over short time periods, differences between cultures, differences between STEM and non-STEM higher ed with very similar same economic outcomes.

troupe3• 9 years ago

maybe those other are more likely to be women. Is that controversial to say?

James Damore can probably tell you if people find this type of statement controversial or not. :)

UncleMeat• 9 years ago

But what if sitting in a cubicle inverting binary trees all day, mostly in isolation, doesn't appeal to others, and maybe those other are more likely to be women.

It is hard to buy this as the cause when we've seen the percentage of women grow and shrink dramatically over time. Is this work lifestyle so different from software engineering in the 80s when representation in cs programs was far better?

rdtsc3• 9 years ago

Is this work lifestyle so different from software engineering in the 80s when representation in cs programs was far better?

Good point. I don't have an answer there. I can think of a few things though:

* Maybe other professions changed and become more appealing so more women found it easier to become doctors or say lawyers. Maybe those women went into STEM before and now with more access to scholarships they could do something else?

* Culture changed. There was a great push in the 50s and 60s for STEM to overcome the Soviets, who were seen as winning the space race. So there were more programs to get children interested in science, and somehow it resulted in girls of that era being more attracted to it. By the 80s they grew up to get jobs so would be contributing to the statistics.

* The new tech companies that grew rapidly had more of a toxic male "brogrammer" culture unwelcome to women, and maybe paradoxically a more traditional places like NASA or IBM where people wore formal attire and pocket protectors also was a place were there was less harassment and more professionalism. As those new "startups" become large tech giants they had failed to pay attention to harassment and behavior of its "ninja rockstar programmers"

* Gaming culture. Maybe computer games started to become more popular. Those were geared more towards boys, as a result more boys got to spend time on computers, at first playing games, then trying to hack games and write their own.

But I imagine women were always underrepresented in STEM and computing and there is no one single factor. Was 80s a "golden age" of STEM for women? What was the percentage difference. How did it compare to representation in CS only vs STEM. I couldn't find good answers, maybe you'd have more luck.

mc32• 9 years ago

Couple of things, tangentially contradictory.

1. We need more women in STEM because there is both an industry shortage and because it provides a potential avenue to a good career.

2. We should look for equal opportunity rather than equal outcome.

3. We see greater STEM participation in China, Russia, India, etc., despite barriers, so it's apparent there are other cultural factors influencing decisions and those need addressing in order to make STEM more appealing to women in the first place.

gaius3• 9 years ago

there is both an industry shortage

Including former cow-orkers I probably know a couple of hundred PhDs. Of those, a mere handful work in academia doing research. Even fewer are tenure-track. Of the remainder, how many do you think slogged through the programme in say physics or biology with the intent of becoming a software developer after?

I absolutely believe in equal opportunities but a false promise of a good job due to a shortage is not a fair way to promote it.

cup-of-tea3• 9 years ago

At an academic institute I used to work at they hired a woman whose job was to improve equality for women. One of the specific tasks was finding out why there were fewer women in the institute. She gave a long presentation showing all kinds of statistics and bizarre graphics comparing job adverts to Playstation controllers (which only appeal to men, apparently). The talk concluded with a figure comparing number of women to number of men at each stage in the hiring process. From application, to interview, to hire. The numbers were equal all the way through, with a slight bias towards women, in fact.

Every woman who was at the institute also took advantage of options that were not available to me as a man. There are special grants for women. They can apply for the ones available for me as well.

So really the question for me is why there is such a divide between the science and what people believe. It's simple confirmation bias. If you tell people that they will be at a disadvantage due to a certain characteristic then they will blame every misfortune in their life on that characteristic.

Same goes for the wage gap. We know there is no gap. It's illegal and ridiculous to suggest it exists. But you will always be able to find at least one man who gets paid more than you. As a man I don't think it's becaues of his blue eyes. But women think it's because he's a man, because that's what they already believe.

katrinamo• 9 years ago

Same goes for the wage gap. We know there is no gap.

I'm curious how you've come to this conclusion considering the preponderance of studies that say otherwise.

This article by the Washington Post examines a few claims regarding the wage gap if you are interested:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/women-...

cup-of-tea3• 9 years ago

The median salary for women working full-time is about 80 percent of men’s.

I don't need to read any further because I've read it all before. Women tend do different jobs to men. Easier, safer, less responsibility and less stress. That's not a wage gap, it's just a different choice of career. Which makes the next statement downright offensive:

That gap, put in other terms, means women are working for free 10 weeks a year.

whitemale6• 8 years ago

If this conspiracy theory would be true, companies would only hire women, because they are 20% cheaper. Why is this not happening?

Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014)

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