Sexism In Science

An anonymous reader writes with news of a recent paper about the bias among science faculty against female students. The study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, asked professors to evaluate applications for a lab manager position. The faculty were given information about fictional applicants with randomly-assigned genders. They tended to rate male applicants as more hire-able than female applicants, and male names also generated higher starting salary and more mentoring offers. This bias was found in both male and female faculty. "The average salary suggested by male scientists for the male student was $30,520; for the female student, it was $27,111. Female scientists recommended, on average, a salary of $29,333 for the male student and $25,000 for the female student."

Comments

Hmmm

[TheSpoom]

I wonder if the females were basing the salary figures off of a relative number based on their own salary? That would explain the bias from them, if they were subject to it in their own hiring.

Re:Only in science?

[clarkkent09]

I have worked at many places to know women are generally discriminated against based on wage.
 
Are you sure of that or is it just your impression? I can believe that there is a bias among certain people, but I also know that studies were made that disputed the claim that women make less then men on average. The key is comparing apples to apples i.e. not just comparing people doing the same job, but comparing people with the same number of years of full time experience of comparable quality. Comparing workers of the same age in the same job fail because women take more time off in their careers to raise children and therefore have on average less work experience than men. Comparing overall years of experience also fails because women work part time much more often than men. Sounds obvious but a lot of studies that "show" that women are discriminated against actually suffer from one or both of the above problems.

Re:Only in science?

[_bug_]

There is actually a massive need for male teachers at the elementary level right now. Why? Because boys need male role models and often don't have one because either dad is off working all day or they don't have a dad at all. And if boys don't have the real thing in front of them they're going to learn by what they find elsewhere (television, movies, older boys) which tends to have negative consequences.

Re:That's funny right there

[Velex]

Well, hey, that also means that STEM careers are less sexist, too! I just heard on NPR the other day that women only make 70% of what men do. But if you're a woman and you go into STEM, run those numbers, and hey! If you're being hired by another women, you'll make 85%, a whole 15% more than other careers. For top score, get hired by a man, and you're up to 89% of what your male colleagues are making!

So good job, STEM!

Re:i never understood this thinking

[Ltap]

There are a number of underpinnings to what's broadly called anti-egalitarianism (which is a facet of the philosophies or schools of Fascism, the New Right, etc.). On one hand, there are the people who benefit from anti-egalitarianism and sponsor propaganda to that effect, similar to the anti-republican (in the "form of government" sense, not the "American political party" sense) and anti-democratic propaganda produced by aristocrats to discourage people from supporting democracy because of the "ignorant masses". The general basis for it is a nifty piece of circular reasoning where undereducated and ignorant people are derided for being undereducated and ignorant by the very people who have historically tried to ensure that they stayed undereducated and ignorant.

One way to think of it is a bit like a murder investigation -- look for motive. The very people who benefit most from anti-egalitarianism are people who occupy privileged positions which would vanish in a more egalitarian society -- the wealthy CEOs, princes, and oligarchs of all forms. Thus, they have the greatest incentive (and are in fact pretty much the only ones who have an incentive at all) to promote anti-egalitarian sentiment. It is, however, easy to promote simply because people, especially in the middle of the economic spectrum (petit-bourgeoisie, or the "small business owner" in many cases), occupy a precarious class position which they are constantly having to fight to maintain. Part of the result of this is a general social separation from the people directly below them (the working class), which is a natural result of fighting hard to stay above working-class people and to live out, in the USA, the myths of the American Dream and social advancement. Thus, while they might not instigate anti-egalitarian classism, they are more susceptible to aiding those who do instigate it and becoming the lackeys of the very group above them which utilizes them as a shield.

One way to consider this is to imagine three people, A, B, and C. Person A is a slave, Person B is a servant, and Person C is a master. In this situation, Person C might use Person B to keep Person A in bondage by threatening to eliminate Person B's (relatively more) privileged position. Even if it would be more advantageous for A and B to unite against C, this seldom happens, for a variety of reasons, often related to the machinations of Person C.

Even more insidious, especially in the cases of sexism and racism, is when people who occupy roughly the same class position are pitted against each other. It is advantageous to rulers for a permanent underclass to exist (as black people and women have been throughout the history of the United States, often the lowest of the low) because they can be exploited most readily. The easiest way to maintain this is to sponsor bigotry that will keep this group separated from other groups -- black from white, for instance. Then, this underclass will have to fight almost entirely alone to gain even a modicum of freedom, rather than being helped by their brothers and sisters to gain it. Why? Because our society today forces people to be competitive or be destroyed, rather than to unite in a non-competitive way. Thus, black workers gaining more rights could be seen as a threat to the privileged position of some white workers, and so forth. The easiest way to sustain a system is to throw a few scraps to a few select groups, and in doing that to turn them into defenders of the system for fear of losing their privileges.