Phoebe Leboy: Why Are Women In Science Less Productive Than Their Male Colleagues?
This guest Forum is from Phoebe Leboy. Phoebe Starfield Leboy spent 42 years as a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania (not Pennsylvania University, as I said in the earlier post; apologies!). She retired as Professor of Biochemistry in 2005, having devoting 20 years of research into the molecular biology underlying stem cell differentiation into bone cells (osteoblasts). Since retiring, she has been working with the Association for Women in Science, serving a term as President of AWIS in 2009-2010. Below is her forum:
In the early days, studies by Cole and Zuckerman indicated that there was a gender gap in numbers of papers produced by female and male scientists, with women averaging 57% as many papers as men. [NOTE: Each paper from a woman was found to be more highly cited.] More recently, the 2009 National Academies report Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty came to a different conclusion. It proclaimed "There is little evidence across the six disciplines that men and women have exhibited different outcomes on most key measures including publications...." Is it true that we have abolished "the productivity gap"?
Not very likely. The National Academies 2009 report focused on the elite of academic science - those superstar women who had already secured a tenure-track position at a Research I university and those who made it to tenure review. Even among this select group, the report acknowledged, male faculty published more refereed articles and papers... but with the committee's rigorous statistical analysis the differences were not significant. A few years before, the 2006 Beyond Biases and Barriers report (BBB) from the National Academies had acknowledged that the productivity gap persisted, and concluded that the critical variable was access to resources.
Looking at http://womeninscience.nih.gov/, we can also see a persistent productivity gap with NIH grants. Women are doing very well in landing their first research (R01) grant, with a success rate higher than male applicants. But the renewal rate for women is averaging 4% below that for men, and women are much less likely to apply for a second R01 than their male colleagues. What's going on?
Like the authors of BBB, I believe the issue is access to resources. The BBB report listed some important factors: a tenure-track position at a prestigious institution, lower teaching loads, family responsibilities, research assistance, etc. But I think there is one important factor that has been ignored in looking at gender differences in productivity - access to the top graduate students and postdocs. Male scientists of all ages have the prestige derived from the stereotype that equates male with science, and many senior women have accumulated enough eminence to attract the best trainees. But junior women without a track record have little inherent prestige, and to an ambitious young scientist in training a mentor's prestige can be a key factor in getting on the fast track to success. If the top grad students and postdocs are following this very sensible logic, women in research careers are working with a deck stacked against them. They probably have a research team that can contribute fewer great ideas and require more support.
What do you think? Please respond to the poll and also comment if you'd like
A. A researcher's productivity is fundamentally derived from his/her strengths as a scientist, and who is working in the lab is not very important.
B. In my experience, women scientists - even young women scientists- have little trouble competing for the best grad students and postdocs.
C. The playing field is inherently not level, and we must work at developing ways to re-grade it.
Hi friends,
It does look like most of you find this idea matches your own experience. I would encourage you to ask the social scientists you know to look into Phoebe's offer to help someone apply for governmental support to study this issue.
cheers,
Laura
C. I made the choice to go to a male advisor's lab because of several factors, but a big one was that the other lab I was interested in was that of a young female faculty member who wasn't viewed by her colleagues as a "promising" person. She in fact did have a tough time getting tenure, perhaps because the good students were frightened away from her lab. It certainly made the job tougher for her.
How to fix it? There were a couple of young female faculty at our institution who became HHMI fellows. Everyone flocked to them regardless of gender because the powers that be had decided that they were in fact "promising". So awards do help. Of course when the big men in the department recommend a person...grad students listen.
Having women faculty be aware (that as usual) they will have to work 5-10X harder to get the same quality students will at least give them a heads-up that they will need to apply extra effort in this area.
I think Sally M has already answered Small Science Woman; we first need to know whether the problem is real. If it is, the next step is to make it widely known, so that we can
a) ask graduate programs, particularly at top R1 universities to monitor it, and
b) bring it to the attention of committees evaluating women for grants and promotion.
I think it should be NSF-fundable, probably through the Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) RFA. But who will step up to the plate to do it? It needs to be someone skilled in social science research who understands that this is a problem for most lab-based disciplines. I volunteer to advise.
Hi Phoebe,
Good question raised by Small Science Woman, what action do you think would be able to make the situation better if we had data? I'm thinking some pushing for diversity during rotations might be possible, but I doubt that grad students would accept being assigned to grad advisors.
And Sally M's question is good too. Would National Academy of Sciences do this? If AWIS wanted to do it, they'd need an NSF grant and some energetic person to undertake the study. Would NSF do it?
cheers,
Laura
Dear Phoebe and Laura,
I think it's C. What group or groups should one urge to undertake the study of this issue? We are all relying on anecdotes and we need to actually know if the discrimination happens in a measurable quantity.
I'd like to think A, and it might be true at small colleges from what I've seen. There is some ageism, but not so much sexism. However, I have no doubt that grad students at R1 highly competitive programs are looking to choose a mentor who can best advance their careers, so if they think men can do it better than young women, the young women will lose out. I can't think of a good way to address this. Let's say that some study, like a follow up on the study of career progression for tenure track faculty at top R1 universities, looked and found data showing that students with NSF grad fellowships, students with HHMI fellowships, etc tended to avoid young women as grad advisors, what would be done about it?
If you had data that showed that, can you imagine a strategy to change the situation, Phoebe?
I have looked hard and long for any published study examining whether the number and quality of science trainees differs based on gender of the PI. I once did an informal single-snapshot study at my own institution in the biomedical sciences and found that the female assistant professors averaged 40% the number of grad students as the male assistant professors. But those were relatively small numbers, and said nothing about the quality of the students or what they went on to do.
So I welcome all comments, observations and anecdotes.
Phoebe
I think it's C and I think a woman either doesn't want to face it or else she is afraid she might hurt the feelings of those people who did choose her lab so she'll stay silent. If you didn't have anonymous posting, Laura, I'd never say that on a public site.
Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I think it's A. I think the students and postdocs pick based on the quality of the person's ideas, and maybe a bit on the extent of the person's funding. I don't think gender comes into it. Has anyone ever said he or she would rather not work with a woman to you? I haven't heard anything like that.
I'll go with #3, because I did it myself as a post doc long ago - decided to work for the big guy instead of the new woman.
From conversations I've heard, not really data, I think you're right about this issue. I don't think young women get their fair share of the most promising new students or postdocs. But I will say there are sleepers among those women do get; a significant number of them turn out to be very creative although they weren't viewed as top candidates to start with. On good days, I think women mentor better to develop creativity.
