Sue
Serjeantson
Why are there so few women in science? This is the title of a debate hosted by the scientific journal Nature in 1999. As Nancy Lane points out (Nature, September 9, 1999) in introducing the debate, much of the current concern about under-representation of women in science was sparked by a recent report of institutionalised discrimination against women scientists in, of all countries, Sweden.
In a 1997 study (Nature 387, 341-343), women applying to the Swedish Medical Research Council for post-doctoral fellowships needed, on objective criteria, to be 2.2 times better than men. In Sweden, nepotism combined with sexism, was a powerful discriminator against women. We have always said that a woman has to be twice as good as a man and this study proved it!
As Nancy Lane pointed out, following publication of the study: "it was no longer possible to assume that an absence of women in science was due to women themselves, rather than the institutions to which they belonged."
Interestingly, this statement is similar to the conclusion of WISET, the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Advisory Group established by Senator Chris Schacht in 1993, under the guidance of Ann Henderson-Sellers.
WISET identified:
"the need for a paradigm shift away from asking what is wrong with women to questioning what it is about the environment of SET that it does not attract and retain the interest of girls and women".
In recent years, the environment for women in science has improved and science has attracted many young women to Australian universities.
In 1998, 53% of science enrolments were women, 39% of enrolments in mathematics and computing were women, 73% of enrolments in health sciences were women and 15% of enrolments in engineering and processing were women.
Women are increasingly represented among science PhD students, and now, about 30% of postdoctoral appointments in CSIRO are women. This is the good news.
But we have waited for more than a decade for the cohort to flow through into higher levels in research institutions and in universities, and all I can say is that it is a very, very, leaky pipe.
In this paper I recognize and acknowledge, along with Nancy Lane and WISET, the systemic discrimination of women scientists. However, women scientists often do behave differently from men, and I shall share with you some of my observations of differential behaviour between men and women that contributes to differential career progression. I believe that there is an interaction between systemic discrimination, which undermines the confidence of women, and their subsequent reluctance to put themselves forward to advance their careers.
As one example of systemic discrimination, I show you the mean rating of a scientific manuscript intended for publication and sent to 180 male and 180 female reviewers. There were three versions of the paper, identical except for the name of the author. The first version of the manuscript was written by John McKay, the second by Joan McKay and the third by J.T. McKay. The first and second versions differed by a single letter. "John" was altered to "Joan".
Mean Rating Score (%) of Article
|
Article Authored By |
|||
|
Article reviewed by |
John T. McKay |
Joan T. McKay |
J.T. McKay |
|
Men |
77.5 |
50.0 |
57.5 |
|
Women |
67.5 |
50.0 |
60.0 |
Adapted from Paludi & Bauer (1983)
See Billard:
http//www.awm-math.org/articles/notices/199107/billard/
Male reviewers gave John's paper an average mark of 77.5 per cent and Joan's paper an average mark of 50.0 per cent. Many reviewers thought that J.T. McKay was a woman disguising her sex, and the paper by J.T. McKay was marked down accordingly for an average mark of 57.5 per cent. Joan was dramatically under-rated, not only by men but also by other women. This study is now out of date, but the results are startling.
To what extent this systemic discrimination erodes Joan's confidence is hard to assess. But the differential behaviour of men and women in research may well have its roots in the constant undermining of women in the rating of their grant applications, as shown in the Swedish study, and of their manuscripts submitted for publication, as shown above.
Let's look a little more closely at Joan and John and ask:
The following story is a composite drawn from my general observations, and is not a true story. This is a story about two dedicated scientists who love their chosen careers in scientific research.
John spent the first five years of his post-doctoral career at the Malaysian Institute for Medical Research. Although being offered more prestigious post-doctoral fellowships elsewhere, he had followed his wife to Malaysia. When John was recruited to an Australian university, he was appointed at the bottom rung of Lecturer, Level B. He didn't question the level of appointment. The following year, having performed satisfactorily, he attained the level B+1.
That year, Joan, having spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at a leading US university, was recruited to the same university department as John. Joan was offered appointment at the bottom rung of Lecturer, Level B. She wrote to the University expressing extreme disappointment at the level of appointment, implying she had competing offers from elsewhere. Joan requested two additional increments. The university compromised with an offer of one additional increment, to level B+1.
John and Joan are now colleagues at the same level of appointment, even though John has an additional three years of research experience. From this moment, Joan will be tagged as a "high-flyer" and John will seem a slow starter.
John is asked to organize the Visiting Speakers Program. He performs this task with great efficiency and within the budget. John can rarely stay for post-seminar drinks because he needs to collect his child from day-care, which closes at 6pm. John always sends a letter of appreciation to the speaker.
The following year, Joan volunteers to run the Visiting Speakers Program. She's keen to get the very best speakers irrespective of the budget (which blows out). Joan always takes the speaker back to the airport herself, with plenty of time for a beer in the Golden Wing Club. Joan always sends a few of her reprints to the speaker and often receives a reciprocal invitation to give a talk.
A couple of years later, John is invited to give a paper at an annual Symposium in Colorado. This is an enormously prestigious invitation that has come out of the blue. John immediately rings his mother to ask if she can take care of his child.
Joan finds out who is on the organizing committee for next year's Symposium and recognises the name of one colleague on the committee. Joan sends her c.v. to the colleague, together with a manuscript that is in press and worthy of presentation at the Symposium. An invitation duly arrives. Joan immediately rings the Dean of her Faculty, to inform her of the prestigious invitation and to say she will be applying for an accelerated increment.
John is asked to be an assessor for NHMRC and ARC grants. He is very diligent about this responsibility, gives up a couple of weekends and agonizes about giving fair and consistent scores. He preserves the confidentiality of the process.
Joan is asked to be an assessor for NHMRC and ARC grants. She boasts that she can knock them over in one evening. When she writes a favorable report, with an inflated score, Joan makes sure she copies it to the applicant. After all, it's a small country and today's applicant may be tomorrow's assessor!
John is asked to apply for a job at another university. He puts the letter in the bottom drawer and says nothing, because he doesn't want to cause unnecessary anxiety among his technical staff and students.
Joan is asked to apply for a job at another university. She knows she's only been asked in order to swell the number of women applicants, but is flattered anyway. She tells the Dean that she is very, very tempted by a job-offer elsewhere, and gets a market-loading.
Time passes.
The Head of Department retires and John is asked to act as Head, which he does with efficiency and style. When the position is advertised, John assumes that if he is any good at the job, he will be asked to put his name forward. No invitation comes, so he doesn't apply. Joan updates her cv, has the occasional chance meeting with members of the selection committee (and reads their publications), and gets the job.
As Department Head, Joan takes the high-flying PhD students, no others, because she's got standards and they make a great contribution to her research record. John, who does not attract young Australian male students, in part because he's a man, takes students with English as a second language and puts enormous amounts of time into their supervision and success.
Joan has some discretion with the departmental budget and organizes a conference with overseas invited speakers. She's very careful in selection of speakers, because they need to be in a position to reciprocate the invitation, including finding travel funds, in the coming years. Half a dozen overseas invitations to conferences result from this initiative.
The University announces a special round of promotions to the Professoriate. John, overcoming his instinct to wait for an invitation, applies, as does Joan.
On the criterion of international recognition, Joan is clearly ranked ahead of John. Just look at all the invitations to international conferences! John is passed over and Joan is made a Professor.
Joan and John belong to the Royal Golf Club. John rarely plays golf because the competition for the Associates is on Wednesdays. Joan plays on Sundays with Senior Officers of the university. Now it's only a matter of time before …….
What happens to John? His mother has grown frail and needs John's support. His child, now a teenager, is skipping school. The house is suffering from years of neglect. Work is less rewarding, because he has little time for his beloved research. Joan is always absent, at conferences or on high-flying committees, so John often does the departmental administration, acts as the token man on mundane committees and looks after Joan's students as well as his own. The departmental budget has been cut and John is the first to lose his technical support. The university is down-sizing and an early retirement is looking more and more attractive.
So these are caricatures. There ARE men who know how to play the system and who do it with as keen an eye on self-interest as Joan; and, as we know, there ARE women who have the same diligent and self-effacing approach to work as John.
I think you know this environment well. In general, only men seek merit and market loadings, whereas women (and some men) have to be encouraged to apply for deserved promotions. Women are reluctant to subject themselves to scrutiny, whereas men, with sometimes extravagantly garnished c.v.s, are not frightened to put themselves forward. You may choose not to play by the rules of the game, but it is helpful to know the rules!
You will notice that I have depicted Joan as a pleasant, sociable, well-connected person who attracts supporters and mentors. She is not a bully, but she does have a personal relationship with those who can advance her career. I believe nepotism is a more powerful obstacle to career progression of women in Australia than is sexism. This is good news, because it's easier to build up relationships than it is to change your sex!
Nepotism rules not only in research, but also in industry in Australia. A scan of the top four executive positions in Australia's top 200 companies by David Uren (Financial Review, October 1999) shows that every one of them is held by a man. Corporate boards of Australia's leading companies are closely inter-locked and insular. Uren says the power of school ties lives on.
The role of mentoring is often cited as a key factor in the progress of a career. Mentoring cannot be contrived through artificial pairing of individuals, but must come from the supervisor, who can share his or her contacts and networks with more junior staff. Next time your supervisor goes to a conference, go too! Make his or her networks your own! Conferences such as this are an important starting point for new networks.
Women represent a great untapped economic potential in science and technology.
The nation and women themselves are investing in the education that prepares them for careers in science. We must find ways to mend the leaky pipe and retain our talented women in the very jobs that they are trained to do.
Sue Serjeantson is the President of Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS). This is a modified version of an address given to the conference.