A thread about this Nature advice column about how female scientists can combat gender bias - To be clear, I'm incredibly grateful to the women in this piece. The advice is clear-eyed & I definitely got some ideas. But I am also really tired of being told this is MY problem 1/n
to solve. Let's start here: Ladies, you need to somehow address the problem that you are SIGNIFICANTLY under-represented as editors, reviewers, & last authors. nature.com/articles/d4158…. Here's the preprint they're talking about - biorxiv.org/content/early/… 2/n
Here's another thing we #ladyscientists are supposed to solve from that paper - manuscripts with female last authors were significantly less likely to be accepted (50% versus 58%) when the reviewing panel was all-male. 
We are also less likely to have our papers accepted to prestigious journals and then to be cited if we do get published in those journals - journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
We also need to find a way to get invited to speak more - For example, of SSE & ESEB, women make up 34% & 38% of postdoc & faculty members, but proportionally represent significantly less of the invited speakers at meetings onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
At AAPA meetings, membership is significantly more female, yet women give fewer talks, especially in male-organized symposia (29% of speakers in male-organized symposia are female versus 64% or 58% in female-organized or mixed-gender organized symposia journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
Men give colloquium talks at top universities twice as often as women do (69% versus 31%) proportional to our representation in the field & career status - pnas.org/content/early/…
Ok, here's one we can actually take steps to remedy - Women submit significantly fewer NIH grants, both first-time & renewals, than men even though we are just as successful in obtaining them, although we're less successful at obtaining renewals than men -pnas.org/content/early/…
Although for other funding opportunities, we have a slight but significant disadvantage - pnas.org/content/112/40… & biorxiv.org/content/early/…
Ok, let's move onto hiring practices we #ladyscientists are supposed to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and solve - This one's one of my faves - We are less likely to be admitted into or hired into an elite male faculty member's lab - pnas.org/content/111/28…
From that paper -"Elite male faculty—those whose research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, or who had won a major career award—trained significantly fewer (10-40%) women than other male faculty members."
In applying to jobs, we're viewed as less competent & less hireable than a male applicant with the SAME CV, & if we are offered the job, we're offered nearly $4K less in starting salary. pnas.org/content/109/41…. So here's a place, b/c gender of the PI didn't change this result
So #ladyscientists, check your unconscious bias when you're hiring or admitting graduate students!
Tons of research shows that student evaluations of female teachers are more negative than male teachers - Go play with this website - benschmidt.org/profGender/#%7…
See cambridge.org/core/journals/… & a summary of some of the research here - chronicle.com/article/Why-We…
And to close this ranty thread, here's another potential thing to address if @Nature next asks male scientists what they can do to combat gender bias - Men are much less likely to believe studies that report gender bias - pnas.org/content/112/43….
From that paper - "Results across experiments showed that men evaluate the gender-bias research less favorably than women, and, of concern, this gender difference was especially prominent among STEM faculty...This finding is problematic because
broadening the participation of underrepresented people in STEM, including women, necessarily requires a widespread willingness (particularly by those in the
majority) to acknowledge that bias exists before transformation is possible."
majority) to acknowledge that bias exists before transformation is possible."
Well, now that I've taken a dive straight into a pool of stereotype threat, I'm gonna go try to do some science like a #reallifescientist. If you want further reading on gender bias in academia, check out this annotated bibliography - blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocial…
Also this thread is inspired by @KateClancy, @JNRutherford, @robingnelson, @Mammals_Suck, @McLNeuro, @GeoEdResearch, and others, who refuse to be quiet about these issues. Damned if I will.
