A new report has found that female representation among tenured professors in the sciences and math at universities remains stubbornly out of proportion to the number of women who obtain high-level degrees. Researchers credit it to bias against women who apply for those jobs. From The New York Times:
The report found ample evidence of continuing cultural bias. One study of postdoctoral applicants, for example, found that women had to publish 3 more papers in prestigious journals, or 20 more in less-known publications, to be judged as productive as male applicants.
The gender gap among math geniuses is shrinking fast as well, making a solely biological explanation unlikely. Most disturbingly, to get college women to perform worse than men on math tests, all researchers have to do is tell them they probably will. More and more, research shows that we internalize gender and racial stereotypes in ways that reinforce those stereotypes. It's also becoming increasingly clear that the best way to tackle it is to enforce parity, rather than just hope the people doing the hiring at universities and other institutions overcome their biases. But it's not just those in power who have them.
In a separate survey of 1,200 female and minority chemists and chemical engineers by Campos Inc., for the Bayer Corporation, two-thirds cited the persistent stereotype that STEM fields are not for girls or minorities as a leading contributor to their underrepresentation.
Missing out on female talent is why the German firm Deutsche Telecom decided last week to institute a management quota, aiming for 30 percent of those slots to be filled with women. Predictably, The Wall Street Journal found people to quote who say it's a bad idea.
Other critics said committing to quotas could force companies into bad business decisions. 'Who knows who the best managers will be in 2015. It is absolutely crazy for a company to commit to such targets without any visibility,' said Will Draper, a telecoms analyst with Execution Noble in London, who covers 22 European telecommunication companies. 'It may be the case that they will have to employ people who are not good for the job just to meet their quota.'
Or it may be the case that everyone always assumes the best person for any given job is a man for reasons entirely unrelated to merit or qualifications. Even the woman competing against him. It's important to counteract that. As Matthew Yglesias notes, there are fields, like finance, where the traits we normally associate with women could be big pluses in the manager's seat. But even if the pluses are as subtle as giving women role models that help them break free from the stereotypes they believe about themselves, it's a win for everyone.
-- Monica Potts
