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Research Reveals Low Exposure of Excellent Work By Female Scientists
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at the University of Sheffield have found that high quality science by female academics is underrepresented in comparison to that of their male counterparts. The researchers analyzed the genders of invited speakers at the most prestigious gatherings of evolutionary biologists in Europe — six biannual congresses of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) and found that male speakers outnumbered women. Even in comparison to the numbers of women and men among world class scientists – from the world top ranked institutions for life sciences, and authors in the top-tier journals Nature and Science - women were still underrepresented among invited speakers."
The researchers also found that women were underrepresented at the 2011 congress because men accepted invitations more often than women.
So it's not an ingrained sexism on the behalf of the congress, but according to the next quote based on biological differences:
The most demanding phase of a career in Biology, when it is important to communicate one’s findings, and to build networks with other scientists, coincides with the age at which women's fertility starts to decline, meaning it is their last chance to have a family - unlike men.
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The title makes it sound like they took excellent papers authored by men, and excellent papers of equivalent quality authored by women, and found that those papers authored by women, though they were of the same quality, did not have as much exposure. This would indeed be an interesting finding and would point to sexism in the sciences, as it would show that the same product (paper of a certain quality) was being treated differently solely because of the sex of the author. This of course assuming the measure of equivalent quality was a good one.
However it seems like all they did is "analyze" (read: count) the number of male and female speakers and found that there were less female speakers. From this they say women are "underrepresented". Hardly a sound conclusion. What if 20% of all scientists are women, and 80% are men? Then a fair (neither over- nor under-) representation would be 20% female speakers and 80% male speakers. Then you'd have to go see the reasons why there are less women scientists than male scientists, which can be many. The pregnancy thing mentioned in the article is likely a big one, at least.
If only female scientists would tell us their findings instead of expecting us to read their minds.
[Rent This Space]
Why is everyone and everything focusing on GENDER?! Gender makes NO DIFFERENCE!!! Even color or race make no difference!! STUPIDITY comes in all colors and genders!!!
Look. As long as there is nothing in a person's way (and this is already the case by law) these kinds of studies need to be abandoned. The fact is, there are FAR fewer female garbage truck drivers than male. Also, far fewer female auto mechanics. Are they being disciminated against there too? Or is it more likely they don't have an interest. And if it is lack of interest, look to that research. The more we understand our differences, the better off we will be.
has to say about this.
If I understood GP properly, he was saying that for a given skill, while the mean level of ability may be the same between genders, the variance among men will generally be higher. There will be both more genius-level men and more retarded-level men, while women will generally be more concentrated around the mean. It's a point I've heard a couple times before, never with a cited source.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
What is a 'wider distribution'? You mean men are more versatile than women, more random, more prone to doing things, what?
I've heard this theory elaborated before (by a female physicist btw). Supposedly, if you look at physical things like height or weight distributions, you'll find much more variance amongst male human beings than you will with females. In other words, if you found the 100 people in the world with the highest BMI and the lowest BMI, a preponderance of both groups will be men.
The theory is, if you could apply the same measurements to more subjective things like "intelligence", you would find the same things: both the 100 (or 1000 or whatever) dumbest and the 100 smartest people in the world will be mostly men.
I'll go on record as saying I'm not sure I buy this logic at all, but perhaps that's just because I'm male and I heard it from a female first. ;-)
With a high-stakes career in academics, where one accusation could cause years of grief, the rule is that you never do anything with any university-connected female that could ever be misinterpreted as sexual.
You do not ask females to go out to dinner to discuss their research. You do not invite (pester) females to visit your university, repeatedly. You do not discuss an abstruse academic point in a bar until late. You do not go to the golf course with a female co-worker (married or unmarried). You do nothing that could ever be misinterpreted, which often means you do nothing at all. This applies even if you are at a conference where the only opportunity to discuss things is late at night, or over dinner, or in a hotel room, or in a bar.
On the other hand, with a male colleague, you find a common social activity and bond.
Over the course of 15 years, subtle effects like this make a huge difference in the quality of social relationships formed between researchers in a field. Good social relationships open the doors that make good professor's famous.
Men may, in general, *express* a larger diversity. The question of whether this is because of grater actually diversity in men, greater suppression of non-conforming behavior in women, or something else is the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT.
Unfortunately, the effort to equally represent women in science usually ends up devaluing the other, more important work that they do... raising a good family. Society has a greater need for mothers than scientists.
Insofar as your meaning is that "society has a greater need for mothers [and fathers] than scientists", I agree. A single income, two parent home is a better ideal than the whole dual income, farm-the-kid-out-to-daycare situation. I personally don't care if it's a housewife or house husband -- nobody cares about your own kids as much as you do -- or as much as you can if you try.
I wonder if part of the anger that your post seems to have triggered among mods is that you specifically said that children need mothers. It seems to be a point of strictly enforced dogma in politically correct discourse these days to say that children doesn't really need women in their lives (see the debate surrounding gay marriage). If you say that it's best for a child to have female mother, then you are generally considered a terrible person. At least that's what I've seen. (I'm a terrible person, by the way.)
Insofar as your meaning is that "society has a greater need for mothers [and fathers] than scientists", I agree. A single income, two parent home is a better ideal than the whole dual income, farm-the-kid-out-to-daycare situation. I personally don't care if it's a housewife or house husband -- nobody cares about your own kids as much as you do -- or as much as you can if you try.
I've become convinced that the ideal solution is the single-income, two parent home where both parents work part time. Sadly, there's simply no acceptance of that in professional work at all.
I think working full time for the first 10 years or so of your career (to master your trade) and then part time thereafter would be a much better model for society (and for business - two professionals who work 25 hours a week are usually far more productive than one working 50).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The whole idea of "underrepresentation" needs to go. Equal opportunity is all that's needed. Mandating equal genders at "prestigious" positions is retarding. Should we mandate 50% male and female interior decorators? What about Coal Miners? Sorry, you wanted to be an interior decorator, but we need more women coal miners. Ugh, no. Your international conference is sexist because it vastly over represents females instead of portraying a percentage of male vs females corresponding to the percentages actually present in your field. Damn it, you're a scientist! Think!
It's fairly obvious, actually. Most traits with a gender component show a wider variance in men than women because men have only one X chromosome, while women have 2, which end up 'averaging' (broadly). This is advantageous genetically as well - if all males were the same, there would be little to distinguish them for sexual competition reasons.
Oh, and since you asked and we're talking about intelligence, source:
(wiki with footnotes)
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