Quotes:
“Strenuous efforts are being made to get girls to consider science, engineering and mathematical careers. … But further down the line, there are a large number of disillusioned women leaving science and academia. What are we doing about that?”
Larivière, Ni, Gingras, Cronin & Sugimoto
Nature Comment, 11 December 2013
“Cassidy R. Sugimoto and colleagues present a bibliometric analysis confirming that gender imbalances persist in research output worldwide.”
Source: www.nature.com/news/bibliometrics-global-gender-disparities-in-science-1.14321
By Mona Mourshed, Ali Jaffer (Sept 2013)
This is a McKinsey report recrutment of STEM graduates, with an emphasis of the gender disparity across a few countries.
Source: www.mckinsey.com/insights/social_sector/how_to_attract_us_women_to_the_sciences
Source: www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/aug/06/benevolent-sexism-holding-women-back
Quote:
“Two types of sexism prevail: overt and benevolent. Overt (aka hostile) sexism – like the exclusionary Muirfield policy – is easy to spot, especially in parts of the world where we have seen the most progress towards equality. Reasonable people call it for what it is – the belief that women are not equal to men, and due to their ‘second class’ existence, should not mind being ignored, excluded, violated, you name it.
Benevolent sexism is different – it is seemingly innocuous but is just as damaging and far more enduring.
The belief that women are kinder, more moral, more fair, more nurturing, and generally, more virtuous than men seems positive on the surface.
In reality, these benevolent stereotypes hurt women because they maintain inequality. Whether she’s the “little lady” or the “woman behind the man” or the soothing creature who exists simply to make men nicer, woman’s “natural” goodness becomes a rationale for why she should be protected from activities and occupations that require stereotypically “macho” qualities.
In the workplace, all sexism, both overt and benevolent, thwarts women’s opportunities to contribute …”
“It’s everyone’s job to tackle sexism, like racism, wherever it appears … As Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP commented, “Ultimately, only men can end sexism, and only white people can end racism.” Men must step up”
Source: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/gender-survey-of-uk-professoriate-2013/2004766.article
Quote: “Just one in 10 at the grade is female at some institutions, Hesa shows”
Quotes:
“My quartet once sought feedback on a Barber quartet from a male coach I had come to love and respect. “Honestly, you sound like a bunch of polite women,” he said during the coaching. I likely don’t need to clarify that this was not a compliment.”
“Why aren’t more women being recognized for visionary artistic leadership in Chicago’s contemporary music scene—and why aren’t more women providing that visionary leadership in the first place? … the research Sandberg discusses in Lean In can help us answer these questions.
1. Women musicians, like all women, pay a “likability tax” when they are self-promoting, assertive, and successful. …
2. Women musicians are less likely to embark on high visibility projects, take professional risks, and conceive of themselves as leaders—which leaves them at a distinct disadvantage in developing entrepreneurial careers. …
3. Women consistently underestimate their own talents and abilities, leaving them at a disadvantage in the essential realm of self-promotion. …
4. When choosing who to hire, men are significantly more likely to choose a man. …
5. Similarly, senior men are more likely to mentor young men than young women. …
6. Women are taught from an early age to worry about whether they can have children and a career. …
I bring these findings, and my own experiences and observations, forward for three very important reasons:
1. I believe that women rarely get the opportunity to discuss the psychological and emotional limitations that gender socialization has created within them. …
2. I believe that many men are not aware of these issues, because their life experience has not required them to be. … But I also believe that my male colleagues care deeply about equality and want a thriving musical ecosystem where all voices can be heard. …
3. … I had a responsibility to share what I had learned.”
Source: www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/sponsors-for-women.html
Quotes:
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, suggest that women are partly responsible for their absence in the executive suite in all professions. What might help is a sponsor, someone with power in the organization who sticks (more likely) his neck out to endorse a woman in whom he sees leadership potential.
Much of this comes by way of those informal networks that women lack but that come so easily to men by virtue of simply being, well, men.
… Data suggest that women with sponsors are more likely to attain a leadership role than those not sponsored.”
Corinne A. Moss-Racusina, John F. Dovidiob, Victoria L. Brescollc, Mark J. Grahama, and Jo Handelsman (2012). Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
Abstract: Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science. Abundant research has demonstrated gender bias in many demographic groups, but has yet to experimentally investigate whether science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in academic science. In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student. Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent. We also assessed faculty participants’ preexisting subtle bias against women using a standard instrument and found that preexisting subtle bias against women played a moderating role, such that subtle bias against women was associated with less support for the female student, but was unrelated to reactions to the male student. These results suggest that interventions addressing faculty gender bias might advance the goal of increasing the participation of women in science.
Read the full article at www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474
Two of three figures from the article:
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| Figure 1. Competence, hireability, and mentoring by student gender condition. From www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.figures-only |
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| Figure 2. Salary conferral by student gender condition. From www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.figures-only |
Source: www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/kristof-women-hurting-women.html
Quote:
“Metrics like girls’ education and maternal mortality don’t improve more when a nation is led by a woman. There is evidence that women matter as local leaders and on corporate boards, but that doesn’t seem to have been true at the national level, at least not for the first cohort of female leaders around the world.”
“I still strongly believe that we need more women in leadership posts at home and around the world, from presidential palaces to corporate boards. The evidence suggests that diverse leadership leads to better decision making, and I think future generations of female leaders may be more attentive to women’s issues than the first.”
“Misogyny and indifference remain obstacles for women globally, but those are values that can be absorbed and transmitted by women as well as by men.”
Quotes:
“gender schemas: culturally bound assumptions about men and women that are unconscious.”
“One assumption is that women are first assumed incompetent until proven otherwise. It’s the opposite for men. So right from the start women are not perceived as leaders. If a woman is successful it’s because she’s a hard worker, or was lucky; if she fails it’s because she’s incompetent. If a male succeeds, it’s because he’s competent; if he fails it’s because of bad luck or a scandal.”
“Consequently, cultural biases consistently overrate men and underrate women. Self-assessment studies show that men and women do the same to themselves. Women tend to evaluate themselves two points lower than reality, while men will evaluate themselves two points higher.”
“In one global experiment called the “Goldberg paradigm,” researchers asked men and women in one group to evaluate a particular article or speech supposedly written by a man. Then they asked a similar group to judge the same material, this time supposedly authored by a woman. In countries all over the world, participants rated the very same words higher coming from a man than from a woman.”
“The fact that women often assume other women are incompetent may, in part, explain why women traditionally haven’t been so great at helping each other up the ladder. That’s changing however, with the plethora of organizations and initiatives dedicated to women supporting women. A revolution is underway; a level of collaboration among women as we have never seen before.”
“Some women use the negative gender schemas against them to their advantage. These women play along as if they don’t know what’s going on, when in reality they are five steps ahead of the guys. As Mae West put it, “Brains are an asset, if you hide them.” Being under-estimated can work to women’s advantage when she is covertly outsmarting him, but that’s a short-term benefit. In the end, feigning ignorance only helps perpetuate a misperception. As one of my favorite leaders, Linda Rusch, former VP of nursing in Hunderton Medical, told me, “What you permit, you promote.””