
Experiments reveal faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (2014) - renaudg
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract
======
marchenko
The simulation of an academic job search used in this study is not very much
like a real academic job search. This study was well designed, but it is
harder to do a faithful blind replication of the hiring process in academia vs
the public or private sector because job searches are much rarer, and most of
the applicants are known - at least by reputation - by most of the evaluation
committee - their future coworkers.

The researchers made a strong effort to obscure the goal of the study, but if
you are an academic participating in an artificial candidate search, you are
likely to suspect that one of the variables being tested is either sex, race,
or both. The experiment where evaluators rated a single candidate addresses
this somewhat, but even in that case the participants are almost certain to
have known that there was no job search in progress, and very likely to have
realized that there was a socially desirable response possible to be given at
no cost. By no cost, I mean that this person is not going to show up and take
space and resources that could go to your preferred candidate/collaborator.

------
rdtsc
> Research on actual hiring shows female Ph.D.s are disproportionately less
> likely to apply for tenure-track positions, but if they do apply, they are
> more likely to be hired, sometimes by a 2:1 ratio.

I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the idea
of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc. Not just lip
service but change the stories, the cartoons, movies, games etc. For too long
in popular culture, starting early on girls are just princesses, then then
later just a romantic interest side-kick. I noticed with my own daughter, she
really wants identify with bad guys in the cartoons because even though they
are naughty they have the coolest toys, rule the world and tell their minions
what to do. But she finds it hard because the majority of the "cool" roles are
taken by boys.

Yes by the time it comes to apply for tenure track positions, girls have
already been told verbally and non-verbally many times -- "this is not for
you, probably".

I remember in Eastern Europe in primary education, girls and women were more
interested in math than boys. I was getting help with calculus homework from
them. My high school CS teacher was a professional programmer before and she
was an inspiration many girls and to boys alike, including me. She had a large
book on Pascal and if we were good we could stay after school and do exercises
from it. So I have seen it work in practice -- it is possible to have a
culture and attitude where girls see math, science and CS as appealing
disciplines.

On the other hand, I think it is worth to acknowledge that maybe there is also
an element were women just don't want to do CS or math. Even if they had
positive role models. I know we all think tech is super awesome, getting paid
to do what we love, implement and develop cool algorithms, etc. But what if
sitting in a cubicle inverting binary trees all day, mostly in isolation,
doesn't appeal to others, and maybe those other are more likely to be women.
Is that controversial to say? I imagine it might be soul crushing for some
even if they were promised to get RSUs, options and a large salary.

~~~
dnautics
>I think the society and culture needs to work a bit harder to promote the
idea of a girl as a professor, scientist, hacker, math wiz etc

I keep being reminded of Phillip greenspun's quip:

"A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as
become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep
tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid
Association convention that I last attended were male). Should we be surprised
that it is mostly men who spend 10 years banging their heads against an
equation-filled blackboard in hopes of landing a $35,000/year post-doc job?"

~~~
_jal
Like a lot of things he says, it is a cute just-so story, but obscures more
than it reveals. Just a few things to try to slot in: differences in
participation in "male" professions over short time periods, differences
between cultures, differences between STEM and non-STEM higher ed with very
similar same economic outcomes.

~~~
vixen99
Please do share the specifics of these 'cute just-so stories' so we're assured
you're not just making a suggestive generalization.

~~~
rdtsc
[https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2005/01/21/larry-summers-
wom...](https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2005/01/21/larry-summers-women-and-
jobs-in-math-and-science/)

(Disclaimer: I just found the quote on Google. I don't know much about the
author and his writing. And so I don't somehow endorse it or agree with it
more just because I pasted the link).

------
cup-of-tea
At an academic institute I used to work at they hired a woman whose job was to
improve equality for women. One of the specific tasks was finding out why
there were fewer women in the institute. She gave a long presentation showing
all kinds of statistics and bizarre graphics comparing job adverts to
Playstation controllers (which only appeal to men, apparently). The talk
concluded with a figure comparing number of women to number of men at each
stage in the hiring process. From application, to interview, to hire. The
numbers were equal all the way through, with a slight bias towards women, in
fact.

Every woman who was at the institute also took advantage of options that were
not available to me as a man. There are special grants for women. They can
apply for the ones available for me as well.

So really the question for me is why there is such a divide between the
science and what people believe. It's simple confirmation bias. If you tell
people that they will be at a disadvantage due to a certain characteristic
then they will blame every misfortune in their life on that characteristic.

Same goes for the wage gap. We know there is no gap. It's illegal and
ridiculous to suggest it exists. But you will always be able to find at least
one man who gets paid more than you. As a man I don't think it's becaues of
his blue eyes. But women think it's because he's a man, because that's what
they already believe.

~~~
katrinamo
> Same goes for the wage gap. We know there is no gap.

I'm curious how you've come to this conclusion considering the preponderance
of studies that say otherwise.

This article by the Washington Post examines a few claims regarding the wage
gap if you are interested:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/women-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/women-
pay-gap/?utm_term=.4c461e142d86)

~~~
whitemale
If this conspiracy theory would be true, companies would only hire women,
because they are 20% cheaper. Why is this not happening?

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle.
That's an abuse of this site, as stated in the site guidelines and illustrated
by the tire fire below. Please don't create HN accounts to break the site
rules with.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
whitemale
> We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle.

You seem to only take issue with one side of the "ideological battle", it's
almost like you just banned the account because someone said something you
didn't like.

If you would really believe what you say, you would not let "gender pay gap"
and "women in tech" topics be posted at all.

~~~
dang
The key word in your comment is 'seem'. It seems that way not because it's
true—we've banned many accounts for abusing HN from the opposite ideological
side—but because there's a cognitive bias in such perceptions. People with the
opposite ideology have the opposite perception.

I've written about this a ton if anyone is interested:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20ideological%20bias&s...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20ideological%20bias&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=13110004&sort=byDate&prefix&pa...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=13110004&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

------
billfruit
Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third
world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I
would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The
few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering
departments.

~~~
Tehnix
In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the
majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely
nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an
education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning
more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as
lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards STEM, but even then it
varies.

Take for example the first source[0], which only has a difference of 962 women
to 1082 men accepted into the scientific faculty. At DTU[1] it varies more,
although anything with Bio, Environment or Medicin in the name will be skewed
more towards women.

I guess my point is: why do we insist there is some inherent bias against
someone in society, if there is not a 50/50 split (which would in itself be
weird)? If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed
to being in interested in different things.

Disclaimer: I should probably say that the above of course only applies to
Denmark, and I cannot talk on behalf of the situation in the US.

[0]: [http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-
optagelse/optage...](http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-
optagelse/optagelsesstatistik/2017/antal-optagne-fordelt-paa-koen/)

[1]:
[https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjG1siy7OvYAhUMb1AKHVneCQ0QFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtu.dk%2F-%2Fmedia%2FDTUdk%2FUddannelse%2Fnoegletal%2FProfil-
af-en-aargang-BSc-og-
BEng-2016.ashx%3Fla%3Dda&usg=AOvVaw3oCfhf7NgEdA7QyD_jvbSF)

[2]:
[https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilli...](https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilling/ligestillingswebsite#2)

EDIT: Added source on first claim about more women being educated.

~~~
annabellish
The danger there is in trying to explain a complicated social phenomenon with
"it's free, so why wouldn't they do it?"

There's very little suggestion that the reason there aren't more women in tech
is because they can't afford it. In reality, it's a thousand tiny factors from
a thousand people, none/few of them actively trying to do harm. As an offhand,
personal example, my sister isn't in tech because she was told CS "wouldn't be
her thing" despite being just as good as any of the boys. Because of that, and
similar discouragement, she ended up not going into tech whereas she otherwise
_might_ have.

It's all statistical, lots of "maybes", "mights", and "coulds", but it adds up
over the population. There may well be dispositions which align primarily
along gender bounds, but there's not much indication this is one - but neither
is it an organized conspiracy. It's just the sum total of thousands of tiny
factors.

~~~
Tehnix
Then that would more be a aspect of social expectations, no? Perhaps I've read
to much malice into the word "systemic bias", as if people were actively
working against someone doing the particular thing there is bias against,
where it is more a result of social expectations on what is "proper" for each
gender.

Again, only speaking from my Danish perspective, but I've never met anyone
thinking STEM of all things would not be fit for females, but you probably
would get that reaction if you were to say, as a female, that you wanted to
become a plumber or similar hands-on jobs.

\---

Slightly going off-topic: Personally, I think the disparity we see, currently,
in STEM et al, is for historical reasons, as younger boys used e.g. computers
as an escape from socialising, and thereby grew interested in that particular
field. I also think this is why it is sometimes met with a bit of a scuff from
some in the tech community, because what was previously viewed as a something
nerdy, uncool and with a lot of negative stereotypes attached to it, is all of
the sudden the new cool thing, and people that suffered through bullying for
being "nerdy" and generally not having the time of their life in younger
school life, are now being touted as if they were privileged all along, which
very much undermines the struggles they had during their upbringing.

This is mostly guesswork from intuition, since I personally did not have any
trouble fitting in, yet even I got the "nerd" remark if I would tell people my
interests, so I don't feel I was particularly encouraged or anything into
this—in fact, most are probably here despite that.

~~~
annabellish
>Perhaps I've read to much malice into the word "systemic bias"

Bingo. There's no active malice there, which is why it's such a difficult
problem to solve. There's no one force to fight against and no "enemy", just a
lot of well meaning people who average out to a crummy result.

------
mc32
Couple of things, tangentially contradictory.

1\. We need more women in STEM because there is both an industry shortage and
because it provides a potential avenue to a good career.

2\. We should look for equal opportunity rather than equal outcome.

3\. We see greater STEM participation in China, Russia, India, etc., despite
barriers, so it's apparent there are other cultural factors influencing
decisions and those need addressing in order to make STEM more appealing to
women in the first place.

~~~
gaius
_there is both an industry shortage_

Including former cow-orkers I probably know a couple of hundred PhDs. Of
those, a mere handful work in academia doing research. Even fewer are tenure-
track. Of the remainder, how many do you think slogged through the programme
in say physics or biology with the intent of becoming a software developer
after?

I absolutely believe in equal opportunities but a false promise of a good job
due to a shortage is not a fair way to promote it.

------
IshKebab
Very interesting. I presume this isn't a blind test though, so could there be
a "ooo they're testing for sexism, better pick the women!" factor? Or did they
account for that somehow?

Edit: Skimmed it and they did go to significant lengths to disguise their
hypothesis. Details on page 2 of the PDF.

~~~
forestdev
Without this being a double-blind experiment, than it is highly questionable.
People over-compensate for bias if you tell them you're testing their bias.
The fact that the abstract makes no mention of this is highly suspect.

~~~
gaius
Blind recruiting had some unintended consequences
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-
tria...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-
improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888)

~~~
troupe
Doesn't that study basically suggests that there is institutional sexism
against males?

~~~
danieltillett
Yes. But don’t say that unless you want to end up on the pointy end of some
pressure group's stick.

------
danieltillett
I am not too sure I would agree with this statement from the abstract: _"
These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in
academic science.”_ It might be less worse to be a woman, but in the same way
it is better to lose a leg below the knee than above the knee.

------
pbnjay
Study from 2014. I really wonder how it has changed in 2017+

------
romanovcode
So basically men and women prefer women to gain tenure in STEM fields as shown
in this graph[0]? Can we now close the "no women in stem" meme finally?

[0] -
[http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360/F1.expansion.html](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360/F1.expansion.html)

~~~
majos
I don't think so. I think the everyday experience for female academics still
lags behind that of male academics. If you're an undergrad in an unfamiliar
hard class it can be tricky to approach a male fellow student without risking
misinterpretation of romantic interest; if you're applying to grad school,
letter writers are conditioned to talk about women in different ways
("diligent", not "brilliant", maybe); if you're a grad student choosing an
advisor, you never really know if the (probably guy) you're choosing has
predatory instincts underneath (most don't but enough do); if you're
presenting work at a conference, navigating after-conference social activities
while being awkwardly hit on gets old fast.

This comes from me talking to friends who are women in CS. It made me realize
that as a dude in CS I have an interesting advantage of _not_ being noticed
when I walk into a room.

The field has made progress but there are still real frictions that make the
everyday experience worse for women, even if the balance has shifted during
the big decisions. So it may shake out as an advantage when applying for
faculty positions or grad schools, but it's probably not an advantage the rest
of the time. I don't think the former compensates very well for the latter.

~~~
romanovcode
People like you are given gold and they will whine it's too heavy.

The graph clearly shows that women are prefered in STEM, what more proof do
you need?

~~~
majos
Imagine that you and your friend go to work for company X. You are put in a
windowless room with an uncomfortable chair where every half hour a co-worker
comes by to ask a brief technical question. Your friend gets a quiet, sunny
office and is only interrupted by the meetings he organizes himself. However,
management assures you that in light of your less amenable office situation,
you will receive an extra 10 points out of 100 on your annual performance
review, and your friend will not.

Would you conclude that you are truly "preferred"? Would you rather be in your
friend's place? Would you stick around this company at all, even if the work
appeals to you?

This is what I mean -- that having an advantage at one step in the process
does not necessarily compensate for a negative experience at other steps in
the process.

