Are Men in Physics Discriminated?

[Yuurei]

Does the study actually say it’s creepy old dudes hiring women because of bewbs and controllability?

I'm one of those odd people who puts more faith in real-world experience than some papers iirten by people who's agendas and variables I am uncertain of.

I have many friends who work in this field ( mostly men, one woman) I often hear them complain about this very thing.

In fact the one woman has turned down a few job offerings because this was the very reason she was accepted.

 

[Coriolis]

I can't find the paper but somebody in the field keeps citing to me how in academic settings intern hiring skews towards women when given the same qualifications. Unfortunately this is because it's creepy old dudes choosing between having a lady work under him or a man, choose a lady for a number of reasons... perceived controllability, sexy reasons, etc. There's all kinds of discrimination, sometimes when it looks positive, it may not be.

I have only heard one respect in which women are ahead of men in STEM fields. It was part of an APS lecture on racial and gender representation in STEM, which in part addressed the notion of the leaky pipeline. This is the idea that, however many women start off in a STEM field, they tend to drop out over time, so for instance the percentage of women faculty in a physics dept will be much lower than the percentage of undergraduate students enrolled. Of course what this ignores (and what the speaker explained) is that the percentage of faculty mirrors the percentage of women students years ago, when they themselves were students. Here is that single place where women come out ahead: the percentage of women students in a STEM field who go on to careers in academia is slightly higher than the percentage of men students. This still doesn't imply that a woman is more likely to be hired for a given position, as there will still be many more male candidates, especially in fields like physics and engineering.

Depends where the implicit bias is. If a scientist reads a scientific publication and forms their opinion based on author's sex, not on the presented facts, that calls for serious measures.

But in any other case, lowering the standards shouldn't be allowed because it's like suggesting that women are not equal to men in science, which isn't true. Also, the field would suffer from such practices. Surely, there are other ways depending on the situation. I think support of any kind for women and girls choosing STEM is a good measure.

There are many recent publications on how to address implicit bias, both on an individual level and in organizations. Here are a couple:

From Psychology Today

From AAUW

From the Diversity Council

They seem to focus on two different strategies: (1) maximizing anonymity in evaluation processes, e.g. removing names from resumes, or having musicians audition behind a screen; and (2) increasing personal understanding of people in different groups through meaningful interaction with members of those groups. At least a couple of the articles point out the importance of individuals acknowledging that they do in fact have biases.

As far as the number of citations goes, I find that an odd measure to go by if that was what they did. After all, some of those citations could be people citing that physicists' work as something their argument contradicts or proves to be false. Plus, just because something is commonly utilized does not mean it's necessarily top notch. Now, I would hope with the standards of the discipline this is not the case; however, it is a theoretical possibility.

Number of publications, regardless of how often cited, is the usual measure. Some schools will go beyond this to weight publications by the impact of the journal or the citation record, but not all do. The department I applied to looked at just raw numbers.

This suggests two questions regarding women's publications: are they less often cited than publications by men; and are they less often accepted for publication to begin with. As someone who serves as a peer reviewer, I can say I have run into more bias in methodology, topic researched, and even language (if the paper is poorly written and hard to read) than anything about the authors, including gender.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Like I said, this was all second hand, I'm sure a lot of the interpretation was downstream. But that interpretation sounds plausible from what I know about academic types.

So this paper/study that you can't remember seeing, which was heard of secondhand, said something that backs up a general assumption you have of academic types. Sounds like circular reasoning to me.

Not all that different from the sort of circular reasoning that racist types use when confirming their feelings about people of different skin tones than themselves. I find these types need very little evidence beyond some hearsay. Sometimes, maybe they knew an "expert" in the form of a police officer friend who could all too easily reinforce what they already "know about", say, black people.

Of course there I go confirming my own biases and assumptions about a certain type of person. It is what it is, I guess.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

In fact the one woman has turned down a few job offerings because this was the very reason she was accepted.

How did she know that's why she was accepted? Did the guy doing the selection process say this? I'm not trying to be contentious, I' just having a hard time believing someone would outright say that, since there's no way he would keep his job if word of that bias got out to the right people.

 

[Qlip]

So this paper/study that you can't remember seeing, which was heard of secondhand, said something that backs up a general assumption you have of academic types. Sounds like circular reasoning to me.

Not all that different from the sort of circular reasoning that racist types use when confirming their feelings about people of different skin tones than themselves. I find these types need very little evidence beyond some hearsay. Sometimes, maybe they knew an "expert" in the form of a police officer friend who could all too easily reinforce what they already "know about", say, black people.

Of course there I go confirming my own biases and assumptions about a certain type of person. It is what it is, I guess.

Lol, I just read the OP article. Somehow I assumed the subject was a study, but it's actually a powerpoint by a scientist who got passed over for a job. Talk about schtience.

As far as all that ^^^, think of my contribution this way, I just presented an alternate view as to possibly being 'hired' is just as discriminatory as being passed over for a job. It's just an idea, and a relevant and interesting one, IMO. No, it doesn't emphasize your preferred narrative of the "victimized male". But equally, If that idea was actually the case, I don't think it would be a good thing, for women or for men.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Lol, I just read the OP article. Somehow I assumed the subject was a study, but it's actually a powerpoint by a scientist who got passed over for a job. Talk about schtience.

As far as all that ^^^, think of my contribution this way, I just presented an alternate view as to possibly being 'hired' is just as discriminatory as being passed over for a job. It's just an idea, and a relevant and interesting one, IMO. No, it doesn't emphasize your preferred narrative of the "victimized male". But equally, If that idea was actually the case, I don't think it would be a good thing, for women or for men.

I'm a little perplexed by the comment about a 'preferred narrative', as I don't even necessarily agree that men are discriminated against in physics or many other fields and trades (for instance, there's way too many male firefighters and garbage collectors and I'd say the numbers suggest anything but discrimination against men in these and other areas). Now, if you want to talk about prison sentencing, then that's a completely different thing altogether, but probably best left to another discussion (there's already a thread in that subject).


I just couldn't help noticing the apparent circular reasoning in some of your comments, as well as certain basic default assumptions that seemed to be guiding other posters' thoughts and conclusions.

 

[Qlip]

I just couldn't help noticing the apparent circular reasoning in some of your comments, as well as certain basic default assumptions that seemed to be guiding other posters' thoughts and conclusions.

I think 'circular reasoning' is a mischaracterization of my personal observations and relaying some thoughts of women in academia who I've had first hand conversations with about their experiences with their difficulties in their respective fields and with dodgy egoist professor gate keepers and male dominated landscape. Because I know of this stuff through a connection that's not STEM, but an even MORE male dominated field, I can't vouch for the differences in the disciplines. As far as I can tell this has been a huge subject lately, pre "Me Too".

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I think 'circular reasoning' is a mischaracterization of my personal observations and relaying some thoughts of women in academia who I've had first hand conversations with about their experiences with their difficulties in their respective fields and with dodgy egoist professor gate keepers and male dominated landscape. Because I know of this stuff through a connection that's not STEM, but an even MORE male dominated field, I can't vouch for the differences in the disciplines. As far as I can tell this has been a huge subject lately, pre "Me Too".

sorry if I misread you.

 

[rav3n]

Of course, but theories are accepted based on standardized criteria. One needs cohesion between experiments, mathematical models, theory. Science has many instruments to minimize subjective biases. Considering how many 'wierdos' populate the field, you can imagine how crucial objective criteria are.

Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. This is one of the first rules of science.

I think up to that point implicit bias should be irrelevant because if one already liked one of the candidate profile, the biases would become explicit at the interview. Then, of course, there is always a personal element, which have to be acknowledged, neither ignored nor necessarily criticized. But if one defines transparent criteria before the hiring process, and presents a comparison between the candidates at the end, it'd be much easier to see if biases entered the picture. Straight out attacking or suspecting scientists of biases is usually counterproductive. Ime, if you present it objectively, they would give you the benefit of the doubt because this is what they are supposed to be good at - taking into account and testing assumptions.

Scientists aren't above other humans when it comes to implicit biases. You pulled this out of thin air.

Gender Disparity in STEM Disciplines: A Study of Faculty Attrition and Turnover Intentions | SpringerLink

Abstract

This study examines the underrepresentation of women faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by comparing the intentions of attrition and turnover between genders in Research and Doctoral universities. It is found that the two genders did not differ in their intentions to depart from academia, but women faculty had a significantly higher likelihood to change positions within academia. The indications are that women and men are equally committed to their academic careers in STEM; nonetheless, women’s stronger turnover intentions are highly correlated with dissatisfaction with research support, advancement opportunities, and free expression of ideas. The findings suggest that the underrepresentation of women is more convincingly explained by an academic culture that provides women fewer opportunities, limited support, and inequity in leadership, rather than by gender-based differences such as roles in family responsibilities. Changes in academic STEM culture are needed in order to attract more women scientists and narrow the current gender gap.

 

[Yuurei]

How did she know that's why she was accepted? Did the guy doing the selection process say this? I'm not trying to be contentious, I' just having a hard time believing someone would outright say that, since there's no way he would keep his job if word of that bias got out to the right people.

The man is an infamous bigot and mysogonist who would often spend meetings ranting about immigrants, lazy welfare recipients stealing his money and of course, that women did not belong in the field. It was well-known that he would ignore her patented procedures and give credit to far less experienced men for those ideas.

This behavior really isn’t all that rare and no, men are rarely fired for it. That’s why it’s called a “ boys club” There are no consequences when the majority of the employees have your back.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

The man is an infamous bigot and mysogonist who would often spend meetings ranting about immigrants, lazy welfare recipients stealing his money and of course, that women did not belong in the field. It was well-known that he would ignore her patented procedures and give credit to far less experienced men for those ideas.

This behavior really isn’t all that rare and no, men are rarely fired for it. That’s why it’s called a “ boys club” There are no consequences when the majority of the employees have your back.

These schools didn't have human resources departments, or were people just not reporting this properly? Most HR departments won't put up with that shit, especially considering they tend to be predominately staffed by women. In situations where this stuff happens, it doesn't matter whether a lot of employees or a few employees have the perpetrators' backs, so long as someone actually reports it through the proper channels. Usually when nothing happens, it's because someone was afraid to make a fuss or report it properly. You can't expect departments to properly deal with this stuff, that's why HR needs to be involved, and it's for similar reasons that police departments need Internal Affairs.

 

[Yuurei]

These schools didn't have human resources departments, or were people just not reporting this properly? Most HR departments won't put up with that shit, especially considering they tend to be predominately staffed by women. In situations where this stuff happens, it doesn't matter whether a lot of employees or a few employees have the perpetrators' backs, so long as someone actually reports it through the proper channels. Usually when nothing happens, it's because someone was afraid to make a fuss or report it properly. You can't expect departments to properly deal with this stuff, that's why HR needs to be involved, and it's for similar reasons that police departments need Internal Affairs.

It wasn’t a school, it was a small company.

 

[rav3n]

It's not correlation, just the scientific method...

I'm not saying they don't have implicit biases, only that transparency and feedback on the performance combined with blind preliminary testing and evaluation would make the biases very explicit and easy to address, thus presenting them in the objective language of science.

And yet, here we are in 2018, with a physics and generally STEM, manosphere. What's the likelihood that implicit biases exist in the people evaluating and females are being held to higher standards than males? It's much like how blacks suffer from implicit biases even though slavery ended over a century and a half ago.

 

[Yuurei]

I've witnessed implicit biases throughout my whole life. As in the first study you mentioned, these biases against women in particular are coming from both genders. They are mostly due to the lack of women in STEM, which has many reasons, and the resulting stereotypes. May be we are not addressing them enough or it would take more time. I think it's best to make women see that they are capable because if they don't believe in themselves, status quo would never change no matter how much we force it.

It’s a self-perpetuating problem, I think.

Many industries are dominated by men because...they are dominated by men.
In such places men can behave as poorly ( or not) as they like and in many circumstances this creates an envirnment that is generally off-putting ( at the very least) to women.

I have never worked in STEM but I have worked in food service. I may as hell been working as a Frat-house Mom.

 

[rav3n]

I've witnessed implicit biases throughout my whole life. As in the first study you mentioned, these biases against women in particular are coming from both genders. They are mostly due to the lack of women in STEM, which has many reasons, and the resulting stereotypes. May be we are not addressing them enough or it would take more time. I think it's best to make women feel capable because if they don't believe in themselves, status quo would never change no matter how much we force it.

The quickest way to correct implicit biases is to kick down the bias by putting women into the respective fields. The more women in physics, the less excuses for not hiring them since the front-running females will prove themselves capable. Also, if you consider psychology, the more exposure, the more people are willing to accept. That's the same strategy that Bannon used to trigger culture wars through radicalization, by exposing gamers to ever worsening scenarios through humor and hate, through 4chan, 8chan, breitbart, alex jones, et al.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Fight cronyism with cronyism. Haha.

 

[Jaguar]

The quickest way to correct implicit biases is to kick down the bias by putting women into the respective fields. The more women in physics, the less excuses for not hiring them since the front-running females will prove themselves capable.

Earn it.

 

[rav3n]

Earn it.

Did you really make women responsible for pushing past implicit biases? Are blacks also responsible for pushing past implicit biases?

 

[Jaguar]

Did you really make women responsible for pushing past implicit biases? Are blacks also responsible for pushing past implicit biases?

I see. When was the last time a woman was hung from a tree and set on fire for having a vagina?

 

[rav3n]

I see. When was the last time a woman was hung from a tree and set on fire for having a vagina?

How often do black males get date raped and subsequently accused of being complicit of being raped because...alcohol?

Are you saying that women are not responsible? We have as much participation in the bias as any other by accepting it.

Yes, you're also responsible for your perspective. Bear in mind that I don't have any skin in this game but aren't stupid enough to fall for the 'must work through' implicit biases. It's similar to telling a rape victim that they're complicit in the rape because they had a drink. Do you see attempted murder victims accused of being complicit in the murder because there was alcohol involved?