Source: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/feb/13/female-academics-huge-sexist-bias-students
Quotes:
“The strength of this unconscious bias is quite astonishing – even for a relatively objective measure such as promptness, students rated a “female” professor 3.55 out of 5 and a “male” professor 4.35, despite the fact that they handed work back at the same time.”
“The implications are serious. In the competitive world of academia, student evaluations are often used as a tool in the process of hiring and promotion. That the evaluations may be biased against female professors is particularly problematic in light of existing gender imbalance, particularly at the highest echelons of academia.”
“… statistics obtained in 2013 by Times Higher Education revealed that only about one in five UK professors are female, with the percentage of female professors at some universities as low as 8 or 9%.”
“Set alongside the unconscious bias of academic recruiters themselves, as well as the difficulty of juggling parenthood with the demands of research, the apparent sexism in student evaluations provides yet another hurdle for women in academia.”