ESFrom discrimination to harassment and belittlement, women continue to suffer far too much in certain fields.
Although gender discrimination may seem like a thing of the past in the 21st century, data such as that in the latest report on the Gender Social Norms Index produced by the United Nations Development Program show that prejudice against women continues to exist globally.
The report compiles data from surveys conducted in 91 countries at various times between 2005 and 2023 (World Values Survey) and highlights the biases that many people still hold regarding women’s abilities and rights.
Some of the most revealing data shows that 49% of the world’s population believes that men are better political leaders than women, 43% believe that men are better executives, and 46% believe that men have more right to a job than women.
In this context, one might think that these global data can be explained, in part, by the marked disparities between countries and that discrimination against women is probably relegated to contexts with limited educational access. But, against all odds, gender discrimination permeates even the most “educated” and “rational” spheres: indeed, the academic and scientific world is not spared.
It starts in early education.
A career in science is also an obstacle course for women. The obstacles begin long before the start of working life, when girls are still at school. The old stereotype that “men are good at science and women are good at languages” can have a very negative impact on girls. Several studies have shown that gender biases held by parents and/or teachers are associated with a lower interest in science and a poorer self-perception of girls´abilities.
In the long run, this directly impacts the career choices girls make when they reach adulthood. The data from the UN Statistics Institute is unequivocal: only 30% of the world’s scientists are women. This is striking, to say the least, given that more and more women are earning doctorates but are subsequently unable to find positions as researchers or academics.
In the US, only 31% of prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants are awarded to women. Furthermore, the vast majority of directors at this institution are men (with a ratio of 16:1 in 2017). In Europe, the situation is no better. Only 27% of those who received funding from the competitive Horizon 2020 program were women, and only 32% of the members of the European Research Council were women.
The difficulties women face in accessing positions in science and/or academia could once again be explained by gender bias. In a highly enlightening experiment, researchers at Yale University conducted a study in which they asked 127 professors from different disciplines and universities in the US to evaluate the CV of a male or female candidate for a laboratory manager position. Each participant (a professor) was randomly assigned a resume to evaluate, either the resume of the male candidate or the resume of the female candidate applying for the position.
The case of John and Jennifer
The crux of the matter was this: the male and female candidates’ resumes were identical; the only thing the researchers changed was the name that appeared on each document. John for the male candidate, Jennifer for the female candidate. After sending the documents, participants were asked to rate the resumes based on the candidate’s competence and employability and to evaluate them in terms of whether they were worth mentoring.
The results showed that the professors gave John significantly higher scores than Jennifer, showing a clear preference for the male candidate even though both resumes were exactly the same.
Evidence shows that women receive fewer job opportunities in science than men, but the difficulties do not end with access; they continue even when female researchers manage to establish themselves in positions of responsibility.
On the one hand, female scientists work in worse conditions than their male counterparts. In high-income European countries that have made great strides in gender equality, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, only 25% and 22% of female researchers, respectively, had a permanent employment contract in 2017/2018. The US once again has similar metrics in terms of stability, with only 26% of female researchers in the top 10 of all institutes that make up the NIH (National Institutes of Health) having a permanent employment contract.
On the other hand, female scientists often face other obstacles simply because they are women, such as being discredited by colleagues (studies show that work done by women is cited less often) or harassment at work.
Despite all this, there is room for optimism. The last decade has been marked by great advances in equality. In particular, the implementation of behavioral intervention programs has proven a positive impact on the equal allocation of scholarships and on the hiring and promotion of women to positions of responsibility in academia.
A good example of this is the intervention designed by Dr. Molly Carnes and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US. The program goes beyond equality training and provides practical, evidence-based strategies that help eliminate habits associated with gender bias.
In the words of the program’s authors: “Moving from motivation (I want to do it) to action requires both self-efficacy (I can do it) and positive expectations about the outcome (I will benefit from doing it). Behavior change requires deliberate practice of the desired behavior.”
In this sense, behavioral sciences, together with education on equality at an early age, are powerful tools for change.
There is no doubt that there is still a long way to go and that we must continue working to ensure that women scientists have the same opportunities as their male colleagues, but equality in academia and science can undoubtedly trigger a domino effect that spreads to more and more sectors of society. As Marie Sklodowska-Curie famously said, “I was taught that the path of progress is neither quick nor easy,” so let us progress slowly but surely.
[References]
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[5] Moss-Racusin, C. A., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J., & Handelsman, J. (2012). Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 109(41), 16474-16479.
[6] National Center for Education Statistics. (2013). The condition of education. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from, http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.
[7] Ross, M. B., Glennon, B. M., Murciano-Goroff, R., Berkes, E. G., Weinberg, B. A., & Lane, J. I. (2022). Women are credited less in science than men. Nature, 608(7921), 135-145.
[8] Tenenbaum, H. R., & Leaper, C. (2003). Parent-child conversations about science: The socialization of gender inequities? Developmental Psychology, 39(1), 34–47. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.39.1.34
[9] UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2023. 2023 Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI): Breaking down gender biases: Shifting social norms towards gender equality. New York. UNESCO Women in Science Interactive Tool http://data.uis.unesco.org/
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