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Scientists Have Paper On Gender Bias Rejected Because They're Both Women

ferrisoxide.com writes: A paper co-authored by researcher fellow Dr. Fiona Ingleby and evolutionary biologist Dr. Megan Head — on how gender differences affect the experiences that PhD students have when moving into post-doctoral work — was rejected by peer-reviewed PLoS Onebecause they didn't ask a man for help.

A (male) peer reviewer for the journal suggested that the scientists find male co-authors, to prevent "ideologically biased assumptions." The same reviewer also provided his own ironically biased advice, when explaining that women may have fewer articles published because men's papers "are indeed of a better quality, on average," "just as, on average, male doctoral students can probably run a mile race a bit faster."
PLoS One has apologized, saying, "We have formally removed the review from the record, and have sent the manuscript out to a new editor for re-review. We have also asked the Academic Editor who handled the manuscript to step down from the Editorial Board and we have removed the referee from our reviewer database."

23 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Feminism is self-proving by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When they resubmit the paper, they can use the initial rejection as a citable example.

    Feminism is self-proving: Just complain about it, the shitty reactions you get back are proof that it's still a problem.

    1. Re:Feminism is self-proving by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, you could eradicate systematic gender bias and you will still get people who act that way. There are people out there who act like assholes for no explicable reason, and sometimes, you're not even sure that they know why they act like an asshole.

      We're probably always going to have gender bias and racism at the anecdotal level. If you're expecting to totally eradicate it, you're going to be disappointed.

      Right now, there are white males who are being referred to negatively in a racial and gender biased way. However, for the most part, no fucks are given. The reason for that is that we don't perceive that as being a problem for us. The world we should be going for is a world when you can make stupid comments like that about anyone, and they are in a good enough position to laugh it off. If the almighty white members of the all-powerful Patriarchy can't avoid being referred to in that way, then I just don't think that its realistic to assume that anyone will ever succeed in not having some irrational bias directed at them.

  2. Flip it around and... by Pfhorrest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure if a paper with the opposite conclusion authored only by men was submitted for review, women (both reviewers and others) would be decrying that fact, implicitly because of the assumed tacit bias of the all-male authors (a plausible concern to be fair, but in both directions), and, if it was in fact the case that women had more articles published than men, suggesting that perhaps an alternative conclusion to systematic bias could be that women just are better in that respect would be a perfectly acceptable critique of the paper.

    --
    -Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
    "I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
    1. Re:Flip it around and... by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Persecution fantasy mostly. Still, there are examples of places that men, in general, don't get a fair shake based on gender. I won't bother listing them all because you've probably heard the Father's Right's schtick before. The reality is that while this is a case of blatant sexism, the reality is that men do also have issues with sexism too.

      That said, I have heard some feminists state that they believe that gender bias hurts both men and women. I can get behind that, but I don't think we should trundle that out every time that an instance of a woman clearly being discriminated against comes up. What we have here is a case of clear irrational bias. It should be dealt with on that level as a clear case of bias and not have it minimized with counter examples of how bad men have it.

      Similarly, if there are examples of men having biases play out against them, then we should discuss those examples as well, without trying to minimize them by pointing out how bad women have it. Irrational bias should be spoken out against because it is wrong, not made into a tool for one-upping the other sex.

  3. Real problem, bad solution by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a massive problem in the literature about bias in academia with ideologies of all sides pushing their agenda. This is connected to the amazing situation where nearly identical studies are getting nearly exactly the opposite results. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/15/trouble-walking-down-the-hallway/. The idea that everyone who is male is one side of this (complicated) ideological dispute and everyone on the other side is female is incredibly stupid.

  4. this is science, so you have to ask... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is he wrong in saying that only having researching gender issues and only having researchers of only one gender may skew the research? what if this were two male researchers and a female rejected it for "ideologically biased assumptions"?

    just sayin.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  5. This reveals a need for blind review by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just as they have blind auditions for musicians.

    It's possible this paper (which was on gender differences) is a piece of crap.

    It's also possible the reviewer is sexist.

    It may even be that the females who wrote the paper are sexist and the paper is a pile of crap AND the reviewer is sexist.

    Hard to say without seeing the paper and the data it was drawn from.

    In a gender blind society, we can't assume the females or the males are always right or wrong. It may even be from different points of view that different people will feel one or the other was right or wrong.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  6. Error in headline by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The paper was not rejected because of one reviewer. It's standard to have THREE reviewers, this is one guy out of three. Additionally, it's the editor's call whether to accept or reject it. Typically that's based on the reviewers recommendation. However, the editor could and should have ignored that one reviewer and accepted it anyway. Actually, the AE should have deleted the review and said to the authors "Sorry, the third reviewer never turned in his review, sending it out for a different reviewer." The AE could have accepted it even if all three reviewers had insightful criticisms of the paper and said it was horrible.

    In other words, the rejection for publication could have nothing to do with that one review, it was not rejected due to that review, it was rejected by the editor who showed poor judgement in accepting the sexist review.

    1. Re:Error in headline by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, the AE should have deleted the review and said to the authors "Sorry, the third reviewer never turned in his review, sending it out for a different reviewer."

      Scientific journals should be ethical. If a review is rejected as inappropriate, they should just say so. Lying about it, as you suggest, is not ethical.

    2. Re:Error in headline by durrr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or the paper is garbage and the gender inquisition should be dismantled.

    3. Re:Error in headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > And, although their suggestion about male superiority is pretty unpleasant at multiple levels, it *is* a possible explanation for observational survey results. None of us might like that, but it's possible.

      It's actually a quite plausible statistical consequence of programs aimed at increasing the number of women in STEM fields.

      The highest performing researchers will be given positions and grants regardless of their gender. If there are then slots or scholarships or grants for women without respect to their performance, it will increase the amount of research done by women but lower its average quality.

    4. Re:Error in headline by borknado · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No you shouldn't reject it because it was written by two women, because even if it was one man and one woman, that no longer captures the spectrum of gender these days. There is no way to get a "representative" slice of gender because there are gender-neutral people, transgender, and polygender, and all the shades in-between. Also one could make the case that a gay or bisexual member of a gender would have a relevantly different viewpoint that needs to be included. So, accept the paper, and evaluate it for yourself on a case-by-case basis whether there is bias due to whatever gender group submitted it.

    5. Re:Error in headline by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Problem in numbers available.

      that's like saying that increasing the number of minority coders will decrease the overall quality of code produced.

      Imagine you have a company that is to hire ten new employees. There are 100 white applicants and 10 applicants of minorities. Their skill lies on the same bell curve; no difference in distribution.

      If you perform tests and pick 10 best candidates, statistics say one of the hired ten will be of the minority.

      Now if your company policy says "50% must be of minority" you end up hiring the top 5% of white and top 50% of minority. Of course the new white employees will outperform the minority ones simply because you got crème-de-la-crème of the whites and merely "above average" of the minorities. And of course the disparity will cause frictions, rift in the team, disparity of handled workload and worse code quality on the average. Oh, and the company policies will protect the minority employees, punishing the whites who confront them for worse performance.

      Trying to enforce a higher percentage of accepted minority products/employees/students than what percent of the applicants they are is in fact discrimination against the majority. In the above example a white guy who got 93% on the company test will be rejected in favor of a colored with 55%, simply because of skin color.

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      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    6. Re:Error in headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > statistics say one of the hired ten will be of the minority.

      Reality says otherwise. And that doesn't even address the problem of getting in the door.

      > If you perform tests and pick 10 best candidates,

      Find a test that meaningfully correlates with quality of code. Google tried, they couldn't. Your fantasy scenario depends on something that does not exist. For someone who isn't an ideologue that ought to cause a revaluation of perspective.

  7. Friday Night Fights by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You guys didn't believe me when I said that Friday night is "MRA Clickbait Night" on Slashdot.

    And here it is, right on time. Every Friday night since I noticed the pattern back in December, like clockwork. Sometimes the article is fer it, and sometimes it's agin' it but it always brings out the most charming fellows and their insightful opinions that "Bitches, man. They're spoiling everything.".

    Slashdot really knows its audience, I'll give it that.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    women suffer from sexism far more than men in general society, and especially in STEM careers/ academia

    I agree that women suffer more from sexism. I disagree very much about the "especially in STEM/academia". These are probably the areas where women suffer the least, and have many people leaning over backwards to help them. To say that a woman working as a programmer at Google, or trying to get tenure at Stanford, suffers more than a women working in a sweatshop to feed her family is absurd. If you want to see sexism and suffering, you need to look at the people at the bottom of the economic ladder, not the people at the top.

  9. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll admit that men have many advantages over women in America. We are not a minority -- we are, in fact, a majority, and thus can exert more political influence. Under 30, we are better educated, earn more, have more health benefits, options, and social programs. We live longer. We're excluded from compulsory military service. We are more likely to pass along our genes. We get courted by women who try to impress us, please us, and pamper us. If we're not impressed, we can obtain the genetic material of a more suitable mate for a nominal fee without having to deal with that whole "relationship" thing. We prevail in custody cases under a presumption that we're better parents. We are but 30% of the homeless population. We are sentenced more leniently for the same crimes, and more likely to receive warnings for speeding. When we make bad decisions, it's an accident -- everyone knows we have good intentions. We are almost never charged with sexual assault, let alone convicted, and we receive more support when we're the victims. We can use our sexuality to our advantage. Women are often our fiercest advocates, and protect us unfailingly against external threats. Women provide for us.

    Imagine the outcry if any of that were true.

    *Shamelessly stolen from another slashdot post

  10. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    original anon, So wait... i am either a misogynist or disconnected from reality by asking why it is wrong to ask what researchers have done to account for gender bias on a study about gender bias...really? so, you don't answer the question and instead ad hominem and ignore the criticism...

    you know, maybe people would think modern feminism (including the arguments on women in stem) is not so much a joke if they actually addressed criticism.

  11. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but it's the misogyny that is far, far more worse and embedded in social norms and power structures in jobs and schools,

    Boys are killing themselves at 6 times the rate than in the 70's. Women dominate college enrollment and diploma earners. Furthermore, watch this, then tell me about "social norms". The fact that TFA is even being discussed shows that people actually do care about women, in fact, society is predisposed to rush to the aid of crying women. Prohibition was called for by some whiny puritan women, and they got it. You're a historical revisionist. Husbands used to go to jail for their wifes' crimes. Female serial killers were notoriously hard to prosecute thanks to the chivalry of male jurors and officials (see #6), and today men still serve longer sentences for the same crimes.

    Here's a documentary about workplace sex differences from the most egalitarian country in the world. Researchers have found cross-culturally (thus not social norms) that the more egalitarian a country is, the more gender differences exist. This is likely because men and women are different and thus prefer different things (otherwise, reproduction wouldn't work); So, when you give them more freedom to decide what jobs they want they express their differences more. Humans are sexually dimorphic species, and it would be foolish to think that the same selection bias that created their very different bodies had no effect on one of the biggest and most complicated organs: Their brains.

    Care to cite any facts? After 40 years of disproving social justice whiners I have mountains of evidence to back my claims. Here, have 286 studies that show women are as aggressive or more aggressive than men when it comes to domestic violence, but you won't hear any SJW advocating for Battered Men's homes, even though they're 40% of the victims of abuse, and the target of ~90% of all violent crimes, and make up over 80% of the homeless.

    There are over 200 US government programs that exclusively benefit women, and few if any that benefit exclusively men (I couldn't find one). If you want to end sexism, why not have programs that grant assistance to any in need, regardless of race, creed or sex. I'm a poor white kid who grew up in the ghetto, and was beaten up regularly just for being white. My best friend was a black girl. I was every bit as disadvantaged as she, and she had government programs for housing and college available to her, I was excluded from assistance based on my sex and race. My skin and penis didn't win me any sympathy or "privilege". When I cried beaten bloody in the street no one came to my aid, but a startled women cried out at the site of me, men rushed to her aid.

    You SJWs say that those who have privilege are blind to it. How ironic that in this gynocentric society, you would continue to be blind to the privileges afforded women, claiming that they are the most oppressed by sexism, meanwhile ignoring that any attempt to garner support for men's issues is typically met with contempt and loathing. Women are pandered to in everything from voting since women are the majority of voters and swing voters and women decide where ~70% of the nation's income is spent.

    You want to talk about social norms? How about this: Men are disposed to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of women and children, and for the "privilege" of fulfilling such duty we get less empathy, less rights, less assistance, and a constantly whining bunch of idiots telling us how bad women still have it because they don't like doing the largel

  12. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it's a false equivalence to ask for scientific rigor in science? if we were blind to the gender of the authors and reviewers, wouldn't you want the same standards and practices followed to further our scientific understanding of the issue?

  13. unexamined prejudice by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Men are constantly portrayed in both advertising and entertainment as buffoons and simpletons when they are anywhere near the kitchen, the kids, or the laundry. Everyone laughs when a man is kicked in the balls by a woman in a TV show/commercial. Where's the fake outrage about that violent sexisim in the name of humour?

    I strongly suspect the paper was a "joke", and the reviewer was sarcastically reflecting the paper's bias back at the authors.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  14. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by denzacar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, but you are forming your opinion on the matter from Gawker Media. The chances of you having an informed opinion are exactly 0.

    No.
    There IS a chance of forming an informed opinion that anything posted under that banner is usually mostly crap.

    Chances for unbiased, non-sensationalistic, click-bait, flame-war-inciting troll-posts from Gaw*retch*ker Media ARE very close to zero though.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  15. Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome by itzly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too bad that women are only interested in emotional and weak men when they're having a fight with their macho boyfriend, and they need somebody to talk to.