Evidence of gender-based discrimination in particle physics research

[aesmael]

From Zuska|Thus Spake Zuska via Julianne|Cosmic Variance:

This paper describes a statistical analysis showing clear discrimination by gender among postdoctoral researchers participating in a particle physics experiment. So far as I am aware it has not been published, nor is scheduled to be published. Nor am I capable of evaluating the rigour of the analysis, having only one mostly-forgotten class on statistics in my past (if anyone reading this can do so, that would be appreciated). Such constitutes my disclaimer.

For people interested in getting straight to the results, here is the most straightforwardly worded portion of this paper:

We find that females were allotted 40% more service work than males, and that the chances of this occurring in the absence of gender bias are less than 1%. This observation that females are significantly more often shunted into service work roles echoes the results of a study performed 27 years ago by Mary Gaillard (1980) on the status of of female physicists at CERN, a very large European particle physics laboratory. Particle physics has not progressed very far in this respect in the last three decades.

We also find that females were significantly more productive than their male peers in both
physics and service work, yet were awarded significantly fewer conference presentations; all 9 females in our sample were more productive than 24 out of the 48 males, yet the females had to be on average 3 times more productive than their male peers in order to be awarded a conference presentation. The chances of this occurring in the absence of gender bias are
less than 1%. This result is in remarkable concordance with the research of Wenneras and Wold, who found that females in their study had to be on average 2.5 times more productive than their male peers in order to receive a postdoctoral fellowship.

We note that this dearth of allocated conference presentations appears to hinder the ability of otherwise highly qualified females to become faculty members.

On a personal note, this study is one of many things convincing me I made a right personal choice not to pursue a research career. Although I still believe myself entirely capable of the work, I simply lack the drive required to overcome the obstacles of the non-scientific portions of the profession.

Comments

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

:(

That is awful :\ And also self fulfilling since it scares women off from those fields :( And I dun blame them b/c it's unreasonable to have to expect every woman to deal with this every day just to get to where they want to go (and they might not even get there thx to the bias)

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

Yup. The paper also mentioned (and I forgot to include in my post) that being awarded conference presentations is largely beyond the woman's control while productivity (the most significant determinant of male success) is under his control.

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

Stuff like this makes me wonder I'd really consider it worthwhile, in retrospect, to move into Biology in University--assuming I get the math skills under my belt to succeed in that discipline. It seems within my capacity to gain the necessary skills to get the degree, but with graduate school a strong necessity for getting a job in the field, this consideration has made me wonder how worthwhile it would be.

Still a thought--I suspect I would dearly enjoy work as a field scientist, since I am already somewhat experienced with fieldwork and method in biology for same. Perhaps technical communication is the way to go, but it almost seems a shame not to do something with this interest.