Study Reveals Women at Parity or Advantaged in 4 of 6 Academic Science Domains, Bias Persists in Teaching and Salaries

A recent analysis of gender bias in academic science, spanning two decades of data, challenges widely held perceptions, concluding that women are at parity with or even advantaged over men in four out of six key domains. The findings, highlighted by Steve Stewart-Williams in a tweet sharing the article "The Truth About Sexism in Science," stem from a sweeping review of literature by Stephen Ceci, Shulamit Kahn, and Wendy Williams.

"The Truth About Sexism in Science," @SteveStuWill tweeted, linking to the comprehensive review.

The research, an "adversarial collaboration" synthesizing scholarly literature from 2000 to 2020, examined tenure-track hiring, grant funding, teaching evaluations, journal acceptances, salaries, and recommendation letters. Contrary to frequent claims of pervasive anti-female bias, the study found that tenure-track women achieved parity with men in grant funding, journal acceptances, and recommendation letters, and were actually advantaged in hiring.

However, the study did identify persistent bias against women in two areas: teaching ratings and salaries. While gender gaps in salary were found to be significantly smaller than often reported, they remain a concern. Female instructors also faced systematic downrating in teaching evaluations, with qualitative comments often more abusive towards women.

The authors emphasize that while explicit bias was not apparent in several domains, broader systemic barriers, such as societal norms impacting work-life balance, may still impede women's advancement. The study suggests that resources should be directed to address these systemic issues and the specific areas where bias was empirically confirmed, rather than focusing on areas where parity has largely been achieved.