My colleague Mike LaChance wrote an exceptionally interesting article on a new study that has been published that asserts there is no evidence to support widespread claims of gender bias in tenure-track hiring, grant funding, and journal acceptances in the academic sciences.
Stephen J. Ceci of the psychology department at Cornell, with his associates Shulamit Kahn and Wendy M. Williams, have looked at reports of gender bias in academic science from 2000 to 2020 and came to a conclusion that went against the accepted narrative: There is no gender bias in the academic sciences.
As a woman who once was steeped in academic science, I wanted to explore this issue a bit further. Interestingly, a 2021 analysis of 145 science journals that specifically sought to look for gender bias in these publications also struggled to find evidence of it. The team concluded that the “results showed that manuscripts written by women as solo authors or coauthored by women were treated even more favorably by referees and editors. Although there were some differences between fields of research, our findings suggest that peer review and editorial processes do not penalize manuscripts by women.”
The numbers suggest that the assertions of gender bias aren’t working as the narrative suggests.
Our results indicated no statistical gender gap in acceptance rates. The Bayesian-learning model found that, after controlling for all other variables (including the recommendations), manuscripts by women were more likely to be accepted in journals of all disciplines except social sciences, where we did not find any significant gender difference. To quantify the effect of gender, we used the model to predict the final acceptance of all manuscripts in our dataset with the hypothetical scenario that all authors were either men or women. In case of biomedical and health sciences journals, manuscripts written by women were predicted to be 5% more likely to be accepted than manuscripts written by men (women were predicted to be accepted in 45% of cases).
This second and strong data point indicates less discrimination against women in the academic sciences than advertised.
Katherine Knott, who prepared the review of the Cornell team’s work Psychological Science in the Public Interest for Inside Higher Ed indicates that several organizations who have argued that gender bias does exist in the academic sciences were asked for comment on the findings. Apparently, there have not been any takers, yet.
A spokeswoman for the Association of Women in Science, which works to address gender bias in higher education, said she hadn’t read the report yet. The American Association of University Women did not respond to a request for comment on the paper. Both groups have maintained that there is gender bias in science.
I suspect that admission to the lack of gender bias will not be forthcoming among any organization steeped in doling out rewards based on sex any time soon. A glance at the offerings to “fund” women in science shows that the monies support woke ideology and en-vogue narratives that have little to do with true science.
Let’s take a look at some examples. In 2019, there were 20 recipients of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) Early Career fellowship program. Here is what that money went to:
The Early Career fellows were selected from a highly competitive pool of candidates based on the strength of their research proposals and their proven scientific excellence as well as leadership skills. They include a computer scientist from Tanzania building an app to help farmers diagnose poultry diseases through deep learning technology, a biologist from Laos trying to catalog and preserve the diversity of reptiles and amphibians in her country, and a biologist from Guatemala harnessing the natural detoxification properties of aquatic plants to filter harmful contaminants from lakes.
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is all about funding women…to talk about gender and diversity.
Women in Science Lectures address issues related to gender and diversity in science. They are given at scientific meetings funded by EMBO.Organizers of conferences funded through the EMBO Courses & Workshop Programme wishing to invite a scientist to speak about gender and diversity issues are encouraged to apply for this lecture grant.Expenses can be reimbursed up to 800 euros (for European speakers) and 1,200 euros (for overseas speakers) to cover travel and accommodation costs.
To be fair, a real robust and serious scientific renaissance is in order in which gender realities are recognized and embraced. However, I have to assume that is not the type of gender discussion EMBO has in mind.
The Cornell team suggests that progress should be acknowledged and decisions on funding and staffing be made on real issues impacting today’s academic community.
Ceci said the report shows that institutions are putting money where it’s not needed, such as the trainings aimed at rooting out bias on hiring committees. He and Williams questioned if the trainings are needed given that women are receiving an advantage in the hiring process.“It’s important to get a grip on what’s going on today and not what was going on in 1985,” Williams said, adding that institutions should be able to acknowledge when efforts to address gender disparities in certain areas have worked.
Fun fact about 1985: It is the year I came to California to be a graduate student in chemistry at the University of California – San Diego! Much has changed in the ensuing 38 years!
In conclusion, the time has come for a serious reassessment of gender-based funding and reevaluating the woke narratives that appear to be the focus of some of those monies.
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