We haven’t moved past sexism in science
There’s still an implicit bias against women who work in the sciences.
Earlier this summer, Nobel Prize-winning British scientist Sir Tim Hunt made waves when he said that mixed-gender labs were “disruptive,’’ and said a hazard of working with women scientists is that “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry.’’
Hunt was asked to resign from his honorary positions, and women scientists fought back with the hashtag #distractinglysexy, but this is only one example of the sexism that is still rampant throughout science, Thomas Levenson, a professor of science writing at MIT and Boston Globe Ideas columnist, points out.
There’s a belief that the world of science has changed, “that no longer is it as hostile to women as everyone concedes it was until not that long ago,’’ Levenson writes, but he says this doesn’t match with the daily life of the lab.
In 2010, a Yale study showed the persistence of gender bias at the entry level of science, he reports. Multiple colleagues prepared resumes that were exactly the same, except half had a male name, and the other half, female—the male versions won out on every trait except likability, and were offered a salary of more than $3,000 higher than the female “twin.’’
Even if advisors, research managers, and so on never blatantly say that a women “shouldn’t do science,’’ Levenson writes, this implicit bias puts a constant pressure on women scientists, and perpetuates the idea that they are worth less than their male counterparts.
Read the full Globe column here.
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