Issues related to inequality are often difficult to deal with. Depending on your demographics, you are probably pretty confident inequalities exist, but when these issues are discussed publicly, attempts are often made to explain them away. Those in the majority (e.g., white and/or male) tend to feel defensive in these conversations because our privilege can evoke guilt and shame, but also a feeling of insult; we worked our tails off to achieve the positions we’re in and how dare someone say we gained this position because of the privilege our phenotype grants us by society. This feeling is understandable, however, as scientists, we must put our feelings aside at times like these and rely on the data.

A recent study out of Jo Handelsman’s lab at Yale University (Moss-Racusin, et al, 2012) looks at the underrepresentation of women in academic science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Although the numbers of women studying and graduating with degrees in STEM fields is on the rise, the authors report that the number of women hired into faculty STEM roles is not increasing proportionally. They assert that this suggests that time will not solve this issue. To investigate whether or not gender bias actually exists in hiring practices, the authors conducted a double-blind, randomized survey of 127 faculty members in biology, chemistry and physics at research-intensive universities. Continue reading “Does Gender Bias Still Exist in Academic STEM Careers?”