Once, when Alison Coil was on a grant review panel, an unusual situation arose: Applications had come in from two people at similar points in their career on similar topics. One was from a white male, the other from a woman of color.
Dr. Coil, an astrophysicist at the University of California in San Diego, remembers the reaction as being mixed. While the women on the panel generally liked the female applicant鈥檚 proposal, one white man called it 鈥渢oo ambitious.鈥� The woman didn鈥檛 get the funding.
鈥淎ll it takes, when funding is scarce, is one person raising one concern to knock someone out of first place,鈥� says Coil, who was particularly disturbed at the fraught stereotypes involved in dismissing a woman of color for being 鈥渁mbitious.鈥�
With movements like #MeToo and #EqualPay putting fresh attention on how women fare in US workplaces, gender equity is getting renewed attention in a wide range of fields.听In the sciences, where in some disciplines women hold between just 10 and 20 percent of jobs, there鈥檚 been a growing recognition for years 鈥� backed by numerous studies 鈥� of the biases and barriers that can hinder women鈥檚 advancement. As awareness and attention has increased, so too have efforts to address not just sexual harassment, which many women scientists face, but also the subtle but deeply entrenched ways in which women 鈥� and minorities 鈥� find their work devalued. But in many institutions, women still struggle to get male peers and supervisors to acknowledge the problem.听
鈥淭he gender biases that pervade all of society can be especially extreme in all fields of endeavor where brilliance is the main idea,鈥� says Risa Wechsler, a cosmologist at Stanford University. Dr. Wechsler cites a in which practitioners in different fields were asked whether intrinsic ability or hard work was required for success. 鈥淭he more brilliant you think you have to be, the more the field is populated by white guys,鈥� she says.
That notion was memorably articulated by Lawrence Summers over a decade ago when he was president of Harvard University and speculated 鈥� in widely disparaged remarks 鈥� that perhaps 鈥渋ssues of intrinsic aptitude鈥� were responsible for the relatively low number of women in top positions in science. It surfaced again this past summer in the internal memo written by a Google software engineer in which he claimed that 鈥渂iological differences鈥� are a major reason why there are so few women in tech.
No data have borne out those claims. Numerous studies, meanwhile, have shown ways in which women tend to be viewed differently, even if they have the same accomplishments as male colleagues.
In one听, faculty were asked to rate the application materials of students applying for a laboratory manager position, who were randomly assigned either a male or female name. They听consistently rated the 鈥渕ale鈥� students as more competent than the identical 鈥渇emale鈥� students, and selected a higher starting salary and offered more mentoring to the male student.
听found that letters of recommendation for male and female medical faculty differed significantly when it came to the terms used to describe the candidates, the length, and the doubts raised.
Change comes slowly
A big frustration, say many women scientists who have been involved in efforts to fight biases, is the unwillingness on the part of many men to acknowledge the problem. It鈥檚 a challenge that may be particularly acute in the sciences, they say, because it attacks such a central core of the discipline: the notion of objectivity.
鈥淚f you think you鈥檙e objective, and your work is based on objectivity, and there鈥檚 this myth of meritocracy, then of course you鈥檙e not going to want to hear this,鈥� says Coil.
And almost every woman scientist has had to contend with the widespread notion that she must have been hired mostly because of her gender. 听
鈥淲omen are sometimes explicitly told that, and people of color are definitely told that 鈥� that you only got in because you鈥檙e a minority,鈥� says Coil. 鈥淎ll it takes is someone saying that to you once in a year to make you question yourself. But what data shows is that on the whole, the bar is higher鈥� for women and minorities.
In terms of barriers, and implicit biases, the same issues emerge repeatedly: Women are asked to do more 鈥渟oft鈥� tasks 鈥� serve on more committees, mentor more students, be 鈥渢he鈥� female representative. But they don鈥檛 get credit for those activities in fields where research and publishing is prized. Women who co-author publications don鈥檛 get credit for their work, while male co-authors do. Women are less likely to be nominated for awards or considered for leadership positions or invited to present at conferences.
鈥淪o much of your reputation and advancement is based on invitation and recommendation,鈥� says Wechsler. 鈥淚t鈥檚 essentially an old boys鈥� club.鈥�
But as awareness of these biases increases, things are also starting to change, some women say 鈥� maybe not broadly, but in pockets and bright spots at a range of institutions.
At the University of Michigan, many faculty are now听required to take workshops that discuss unconscious bias and how to mitigate it. Among other things, search committees there now try to set out a specific list of what they鈥檙e looking for and what they want to prioritize before looking at applications.听
More science departments around the country are taking a hard look at how they evaluate applications and grants, and making sure they don鈥檛 just solicit a token woman or minority applicant, but have a significant number.
The Hubble Space Telescope has started randomizing its review process for applications to use the telescope, changing the order of names so that it鈥檚 not clear who the principal investigator is and using initials rather than first names. That has helped reduce the bias it used to have in which men had a higher rate of success with their applications than women.
After the 2016 election, a number of women came together to form 鈥�500 Women Scientists鈥� 鈥� a grassroots group whose initial goal was to get 500 signatures to an open letter reaffirming their commitment to speaking up for science as well as underrepresented groups. They passed that goal within hours, and now have over 20,000 women who have signed in support, many of whom participate in local 鈥減ods鈥� that offer support to each other and take on activism in various ways.
鈥淐hange that is sustainable and sticks takes a long time,鈥� says Jane Zelikova, one of the co-founders of 500 Women Scientists, who says she oscillates between being angry and being optimistic. She recently managed to use data to convince a male engineer, who had been skeptical of bias, that asking questions in a different way really can make a difference. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a slow process,鈥� Dr. Zelikova says. 鈥淗e still pushes back on other things.鈥�
Scientists too
More overt harassment, too, is getting attention in the sciences 鈥� including the role it can play in discouraging promising women from certain careers or driving them out of their field.
Two years before the allegations against Harvey Weinstein helped launch the MeToo movement, the astronomy field was shaken when one of its biggest stars 鈥� Geoffrey Marcy, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley 鈥� had to resign from his job after multiple accusations of sexual harassment from students, stretching back over decades.
This past fall, another well known scientist 鈥� geologist David Marchant 鈥� was found by Boston University to have sexually harassed a graduate student in Antarctica. He is appealing his termination, though his initial appeal was denied.
Two ingredients make the academic sciences, in particular, ripe for sexual harassment, says Meg Urry, an astrophysicist at Yale University and a former president of the American Astronomical Society. Many of the fields are heavily male-dominated, and there鈥檚 a significant hierarchy and power imbalance. 鈥淭hat puts young women in a vulnerable position when they enter a science,鈥� Dr. Urry says.
'What about all the women ...?'
During the fallout from the Geoff Marcy case, one of the things that most bothered Urry was the number of astronomers who talked about what a loss to the field Dr. Marcy鈥檚 resignation was. 鈥淚鈥檓 thinking, what about all the women who didn鈥檛 contribute because they left the field鈥� due to Marcy, says Urry. 鈥淔or every one of these serial predators there are a dozen, maybe several dozen, women whose trajectories have been stopped or badly altered. That鈥檚 a huge impact.鈥�
A that looked at workplace atmosphere for women in astronomy found that nearly 40 percent of women reported being verbally harassed within the last five years, and 9 percent reported being physically harassed. The problem was particularly acute for women of color, of whom 40 percent reported feeling unsafe at work within the last five years.听
鈥淭hey faced a double jeopardy, not only feeling unsafe because of gender, but also because of race,鈥� says Christina Richey, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist who was one of the authors of the study. 鈥淭alk about death by 1,000 cuts. For them it was 2,000 cuts.鈥�
Gilda Barabino, a chemical engineer and dean of the Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York, says she鈥檚 had situations in which white women have dismissed her experience as an African-American woman in the sciences as less important, saying that 鈥済ender trumps race鈥� when it comes to discrimination 鈥� not something she has always found to be true.
But Dr. Barabino has also found some promising solutions 鈥� particularly in the support women can give each other. Years ago, she and a social scientist used a National Science Foundation grant to bring a cohort of women of color in engineering together. Over the course of several years, those 20 women not only came together in the circumstances Barabino organized, but continued to support each other, call each other, and even collaborate on work. Many years later, she says, many have moved into leadership roles and at least 18 are still very active professionally.
鈥�Everywhere I go I make a suggestion to come together as a group,鈥� says Barabino. 鈥淚 speak to the power of sharing stories and having supportive networks.鈥� When she went through school and rose in her career, there were no support networks, Barabino adds, and she was mostly working just to ensure professional survival.
Now, 鈥渢here鈥檚 a glimmer of hope and some light when you see that the numbers are increasing, or are more than when I went through,鈥� she says. 鈥淎t the same time, I don鈥檛 see systemic change happening.鈥�
