鈥淎nti-female bias in academic hiring has ended,鈥� declare husband and wife social psychologists Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci in an . They just published the of a survey that they claim suggests women applying for US science faculty positions have a 2:1 advantage over equally qualified men, even in male-dominated fields such as engineering.
Yet, while the US says 40 per cent of doctoral degrees in science and engineering went to women in 2008 鈥� up from 17 per cent in 1976 鈥� their representation in faculty is low: .
Williams and Ceci put such figures down to women failing to apply for these jobs as often 鈥� possibly because of the 鈥渙mnipresent discouraging messages about sexism in hiring鈥�. They go on to write: 鈥淲hile women may encounter sexism before and during graduate training and after becoming professors, the only sexism they face in the hiring process is bias in their favour.鈥�
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While quantitative studies of these issues are laudable, Williams and Ceci鈥檚 data do not support their broad conclusions, and publicising them may make the situation for women in science worse.
The duo focused on a particular point in the science career pipeline: scientists with PhDs applying for tenure-track jobs at colleges or universities. 鈥淭his point of hiring is just one point, but it is an extremely important one,鈥� Williams told 快猫短视频.
Conflicting conclusions
Their study involved sending narrative descriptions of three hypothetical candidates 鈥� one male, one female, one random 鈥� to professors who then ranked them. But hiring a candidate for a faculty job involves more than just reading a biography. Faculty search committees often consider far more than three candidates who face lengthy interviews, site visits, giving talks and meeting potential colleagues 鈥� all points at which bias can crop up.
鈥淭his study was constructed in such a way as to present people with 鈥榚qually qualified鈥� dossiers for male and female candidates to judge their hireability 鈥� a noble goal, but carried out in a way that does not resemble the academic hiring process whatsoever,鈥� says of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. 鈥淲hen you construct an experiment that isn鈥檛 a good model of reality, you get results that are also not reflective of reality.鈥�
It is also possible that the polled professors figured out that gender bias was being tested.
鈥淲illiams and Ceci do not have data to support how scientists rank potential candidates,鈥� sociologist Zuleyka Zevallos. 鈥淭hey have produced data about how scientists respond to a study about gender bias in academia, when they can easily guess that gender bias is being observed.鈥�
It may be difficult to construct an experiment that does reflect reality for academic hiring. Previous attempts looked at earlier points in the career path 鈥� or 鈥� and came to the opposite conclusion: John got more interviews than Jane.
Affirmative action
鈥淭his article is an outlier bobbing in a vast body of research that supports the existence of systemic bias against women in science,鈥� Walkowicz says.
Placing this one study above those that outnumber and contradict it could hamper efforts to equalise gender bias. Katie Mack, a postdoctoral fellow at Melbourne University in Australia, points out: 鈥淚f fellow scientists think that women who are hired are undeserving, it reinforces and multiplies existing unconscious biases.鈥�
There is one way to interpret the results that is both realistic and positive: that affirmative action policies, which say that the under-represented candidate should get the job in cases where two candidate are equal, can work 鈥� at least in two-thirds of cases. Williams and Ceci agree with this.
But their assertion that women fail to apply for jobs because they are discouraged by research about sexism is misguided.
鈥淭he idea that 鈥榯alking about the presence of sexism scares women away from the field鈥� is wrong and counterproductive,鈥� Mack says. 鈥淭alking about the presence of sexism is the only thing that can help reduce it.鈥�