Are women overlooked in science prizes?

There's an interesting new editorial in DNA and Cell Biology by Jo Handelsman and Rosalind Grymes that argues women are too-often overlooked in science awards, saying there's bias in the evaluation process. True, women are not as common as men at higher science levels, but even considering that, the authors say prizes go disproportionately to men.

They list some reasons for why they believe this occurs. Do you agree? What can be done to fix the situation?

You can read the editorial here:
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/dna.2008.1506?cookieSet=1

Alison McCook
Deputy Editor

Use this: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/dna.2008.1506

At the risk of sounding biased, of course I agree. The authors do a very good job of reviewing studies that indicate we are all biased in our evaluations. How else could someone say in a faculty meeting that a job should go to a man because he is the main source of income for the family when in fact there are women in the room who are indeed the main source of income for the family and in fact that statement was equally true for at least one of the female candidates for the position. Ah, but I digress. The authors suggest that a set of questions should be used to try to focus attention to specifics rather than personal bias when making evaluations but I've seen where all the machinations for equality are simply tossed aside to hire the person the search chair (male) decides should be hired based on nothing more than personal bias. When that search chair is someone with the clout to act negatively on a promotion and tenure decision, personal preservation dictates that there isn't an argument. As long as the faculty handbook allows personal bias of department chairs or even higher levels to be a right of the position there will be only modest changes to the awardees of top science awards. The problem is at the bottom of the process; the article pointed that out rather well.

Choose the single best answer from the list below.

A. Men accomplish more.

B. Men are more innovative.

C. Men lobby harder for prizes.

D. Men award prizes to each other.

JON199271 wrote:Choose the single best answer from the list below.

A. Men accomplish more.

B. Men are more innovative.

C. Men lobby harder for prizes.

D. Men award prizes to each other.

Wrong questions produce wrong answers. Women brain is different from that of man, that is neurophysiologically confirmed. Science prices have been formulated to fit certain, analytical, (anglo-saxonic or Vienna circle) line of science development. That is best suited for brain of man. Science these days moves to complexity research which may open more space to women, namely in the experimental part.
All answers a right under specific environment of science of late 18th - first decade 21st century. But possibly will not be relevant in science of 21st century.

I think the editorial touches on it a little, but I think a major problem may lie in women not applying for (or not being nominated) such prizes.

Is there a modesty or pessism ("why bother?") factor there on behalf of women scientists themselves?

I'm not sure how this factor could be addresed any further than it already is - by promoting women-only initiatives or minimum women thresholds (which can be seen as reverse sexism) or by tagging nominations with "women are encouraged to apply" (slightly less reverse sexism, but a little condescending).

The article just preceding this one in today's Daily The Scientist Online is about the recent recipients of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Awards. Among the 25 are four life scientists and all are women!

MarshaTS497338 wrote:The article just preceding this one in today's Daily The Scientist Online is about the recent recipients of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Awards. Among the 25 are four life scientists and all are women!

So 4 out of 4 price winning life scientist are women!

Maybe the title should be are still living men overlooked in science prizes

A factor often overlooked in science, is that most of the young and less experienced researchers, who are less likely to receive science prizes are femaile, whereas most of the older and more experienced researchers are male. Add to this the different distrubution over disciplines, exact sciences, life sciences, social sciences and subdisciplines and much of the differences between man and can be explained.

It will be hard to state that women - or even men - are overlooked without having normalized data, for (sub)discipline, years of full time work experience, and probably many other factors as well, including social factors - e.g. willingness to move, to invest in a long-term career, to have a full-supporting partner. Not all of this automatically implies that women are overlooked, in fact the reverse may also be true, due to positive discrimination

men and women are different, each suited for specific activities, and the bias towards men in science is just a result of that

well, today a woman got the Nobel prize of medicine! Congratulations to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi

what?

All I have to say on the matter is Rosalind Franklin. Enough said.

I think women are definitely not overlooked, we had many female lecturers at University winning very prestigious prizes and they were the top of their fields and had achieved all while still very young.

It is the exception that proves the rule. javascript:emoticon('

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I think that as time progress and more women get in to the technical fields, the perception of negative bias towards women will dissipate. Although there will always be some bias toward some group of individuals. That is just the nature of human beings.

Sadly, the comparison between men and women will always be the same. Am I saying I'm sexist? Maybe.. should both sexes be viewed differently? Come on.. we're not exactly the same, and each of us have different qualities. I don't see why people try to compare us both so much.. It's just asking for trouble.

Apparently there is an inherent bias in the brain that can kick in. It could be women, race, religion, age or anything.

Here in the UK there is a proposal that on any job application, the applicants National Insurance number will be used instead of their name at the first contact. This will get around any bias that would result in an application being binned out of hand.

Could be an interesting prospect and perhaps a second study could be started with a video camera being trained on the interviewers face as the candidates come in.

men and women are different, each suited for specific activities, and the bias towards men in science is just a result of that......

Suj
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FTP Server

Well Suj

I am really glad that you have realised that men and women are different, I guess that shows just how scientific men can be that they can work out the difference between the sexes.

Given that men have dominated the world for so long, women had to do the work in the background and either publish under different names or through husbands, bothers or whatever. Some of the most brilliant work has been done by women, I let you check the history books. Men are not designed for science. They are designed to go out and bang dinosaurs on the head and drag them back to the cave. Sometimes the women may let the brighter ones skin and gut them but they kept the science of cooking to themselves.

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