Gender bias

Soon after my birthday, I read a couple of articles that I found extremely depressing:

From Scientific American:  Study shows gender bias in science is real.  And from Inside Higher Ed:  Study shows scientists are biased against women.

I read the Inside Higher Ed article first.  The article depressing in and of itself:  Scientists were given identical resumes for hypothetical students, with just the names changed.  One name obviously female, one obviously male, and asked to rate the students.

... [T]he scientists were asked to rate the students' competence on a 5-point scale. Male faculty rated the male student 4.01 and the female student 3.33. Female scientists rated the male student 4.10 and the female student 3.32. On salary, the gaps were also notable. The average salary suggested by male scientists for the male student was $30,520; for the female student, it was $27,111. Female scientists recommended, on average, a salary of $29,333 for the male student and $25,000 for the female student.

That's bad. The scientists didn't think they were being sexist. They just honestly thought that Jane wasn't as competent as the identical John.  Which makes me wonder (a) do I do this?  I hope I do not.  I must be vigilant and try to make sure I do not.  And (b) am I a victim of this?  Would I ever know if so?  Is my work valued less because I have a very distinctly feminine name?  (I have wondered in the past, but what can you possibly do?)

The most depressing thing about the article, however, was the comments.  The blog from Scientific America summed it up best:

[M]ost people who read this will have one of four reactions:

1) This is not surprising, but I’m glad we have something concrete to show what we’ve known all along.

2) This is surprising and disturbing.

3) Figure 2 is misleading because the y-axis does not start at zero. Therefore, I will reject everything else exposed by this study.

4) Equally qualified women should be discriminated against, because they could go off and get pregnant. 

On the Inside Higher Ed blog, which is supposedly of interest to my academic colleagues, there seemed to be a huge number of comments #4.  And also comments along the line of "The women are rating the female students just as badly as the men, so it can't really be sexism."  And "Yeah but maybe the women looked the same on paper, but they wouldn't be as good later in life because women never are the best of the best.  Those are the men."

These are comments from educated people, the educators of America.  Sometimes America sucks.

You know what, American educators?  (1) It's none of your business if they go off and get pregnant.  And the fact that they might doesn't make them less effective workers and poorer scientists.  (2) Women can also be sexist to women.  In fact, historically women have been our own worst enemies (see for example women's suffrage).  (3) Studies show over and over that it isn't the gender that's holding the women back from performing at the top.  It's the culture.  A relatively recent study published in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, for example, showed that we Americans are hurting both our men and our women in science by our cultural attitudes.  Sure math is great later in life, but you're a loser if you're good at it as a kid.  The peak performers in the highest tier math competitions in high school and college are both male and female, but they're coming from other countries where kids and adults value math as much as basketball.

As I have mused about this in the past, the advice I receive is along the lines of, "just put your head down and do the best work you can and don't worry about it."  Which is excellent advice, and how I've lived my life.  But sometimes things need to be worried about.  But I'm not big enough to do all the worrying on my own.

Reader, please go worry for me.  Thanks.  That's much better.