WOMEN IN SCIENCE
(Very) slow gains
in the war on bias
Despite bright spots, equity
still eludes women scientists
BOULDER, COLO. – Once, when Alison Coil
was on a grant review panel, two appli-
cations came in from people at similar
points in their career on similar topics.
One was from a white male, the other
from a woman of color.
Dr. Coil, an astrophysicist at the Uni-
versity of California, San Diego, says that
while the women on the panel generally
liked the female applicant’s proposal, one
man called it “too ambitious.” The woman
didn’t get the funding.
“All it takes, when funding is scarce,
is one person raising one concern to
knock someone out of first place,” says
Coil, who was particularly disturbed
at the fraught stereotypes involved in
dismissing a woman of color for being
“ambitious.”
With movements like #MeToo and
#EqualPay putting fresh attention on how
women fare in US workplaces, gender eq-
uity is getting renewed attention in a wide
range of fields. In the sciences, in which
women hold between 10 and 20 percent
of jobs in some disciplines, there’s been a
growing recognition – backed by numer-
ous studies – of the biases and barriers
that can hinder women’s advancement.
As awareness and attention have in-
creased, so, too, have efforts to address
not just sexual harassment, but also the
subtle but deeply entrenched ways in
which women – and minorities – find
their work devalued.
“The gender biases that pervade all of
society can be especially extreme in all
fields of endeavor where brilliance is the
main idea,” says Risa Wechsler, a cosmol-
ogist at Stanford University. Dr. Wechsler
cites a 2015 study in which practitioners
in different fields were asked whether in-
trinsic ability or hard work was required
for success. “The more brilliant you think
you have to be, the more the field is pop-
ulated by white guys,” she says.
A big frustration, say many women
scientists who have been involved in ef-
forts to fight biases, is the unwillingness
on the part of many men to acknowledge
the problem. And almost every woman
scientist has had to contend with the
widespread notion that she must have
been hired mostly because of her gender.
But as awareness increases, things arealso starting to change, some women say- maybe not broadly, but in pockets and
bright spots at a range of institutions.
At the University of Michigan, many
faculty are now required to take work-
shops on unconscious bias. Among other
things, search committees there now try
to set out a specific list of what they’re
looking for and what they want to prior-
itize before looking at applications.
More science departments around the
country are taking a hard look at how
they evaluate applications and grants and
making sure they don’t just solicit a token
woman or minority applicant but have a
significant number.
The Hubble Space Telescope has start-
ed randomizing its application review
process for people to use the telescope,
changing the order of names so that it’s
not clear who the principal investigator is
and using initials rather than first names.
After the 2016 election, a number
of women came together to form “
Women Scientists” – a grass-roots group
whose initial goal was to get 500 signa-
tures to an open letter reaffirming their
commitment to speaking up for science
as well as underrepresented groups. They
passed that goal within hours, after more
than 20,000 women signed.
“Change that is sustainable and sticks
takes a long time,” says Jane Zelikova,
one of the co-founders of “500 Women
Scientists,” who says she oscillates be-
tween being angry and being optimistic.
“It’s a slow process.”- Amanda Paulson / Staff writer
‘CHANGE THAT IS SUSTAINABLE AND
STICKS TAKES A LONG TIME.’- Jane Zelikova, ecologist
ANN HERMES/STAFF/FILEWOMAN’S WORK: Scientists analyze DNA
at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation
Laboratory.
RÉUNION ISLAND, on a beach where sea
turtles were once hunted and then bred com-
mercially, there is now a turtle sanctuary.
Kélonia was founded in 1994 to care for and
protect the giant creatures (they can weigh as
much as 1,500 pounds), which are among the
most ancient on earth. Until fairly recently,
sea turtles were hunted for their meat and
perceived medicinal properties. Today it is
illegal in many countries to hunt sea turtles,
but they remain at risk because of the rapid
shrinking of their native habitats and natural
breeding grounds. Réunion Island, a French
territory off the eastern coast of Southern
Africa, lies in the Mozambique Channel,
home to five of the remaining seven species
of sea turtles.CIUDAD ARCE, EL SALVADOR, employees
of League Collegiate Outfitters have to go to
school if they want to keep their jobs. The
T-shirt-making company, which employs ex-
gang members, people with disabilities, and
others who have struggled to find jobs, offers
mandatory high school courses to any of its
550 employees who haven’t graduated. The
company’s factory also houses a two-year
college so employees can easily move on to
college once they get their high school di-
ploma. General manager Rodrigo Bolaños
told PBS, “If you don’t study, this is not the
place for you.”LEIRIA, PORTUGAL, more than 3,000 vol-
unteers came together one day last month to
plant approximately 67,000 trees in central
Portugal where last year wildfires destroyed
more than 1.2 million acres of forest. Orga-
nizers of the planting project say the efforts
were just the first step toward planting the
30 million new trees that would be needed to
restore the area. “We are from this region,”
one of the organizers of the project told
Euronews. “We ... all used this forest, we all
have good memories of this forest.... [I]t was
the forest itself that cried out [to us] for help.”(^) – Staff
meanwhile in ...
A GIANT GREEN TURTLE PETER ANDREWS/REUTERS/FILE