Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Male and female math whizzes in adulthood

In a New York Times op-ed this week, two Cornell professors lay out a provocative argument: The gender gap in research science isn’t a reflection of sexism in the academy; the real problem is that journalists over-report small differences, thus perpetuating them and scaring women off. There’s no question, admit Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams, professors of human development, that “until recently, universities deserved their reputations as bastions of male privilege and outright sexism.” But, they go on: “Times have changed.” Mistreatment of women in the physical sciences, computer sciences and engineering is “largely anecdotal, or else overgeneralized from small studies.” For women working in research science today, they argue, getting hired, promoted and fairly compensated is not very different than it is for men.

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The latest set of data—gathered from surveys collected between early 2012 and early 2013—shows that these mathematically precocious children had grown into high-achieving adults: Across the two cohorts, 4.1 percent had earned tenure at a major university, 2.3 percent had become senior executives at well-known companies, and another 2.4 percent were attorneys at major firms. But they also found important gender differences at every level of elite achievement. Among the first cohort, for example, 33 percent of the men had earned a Ph.D., compared to 25 percent of the women. 4.7 percent of the men, but just 1.5 percent of the women, had achieved tenure at a major university. Nearly three times as many men had published a book. Over three percent of men and 0.7 percent of women had won a grant from the National Science Foundation. There were also differences in the women’s lifestyles and priorities: Women more often said personal relationships were more important than work, and 30 percent of women—but just 7 percent of men—said they’d be unwilling to devote more than 40 hours per week to their “ideal job.” Williams and Ceci don’t deny that women are under-represented at the top levels of science, but the SMPY data at least shows that we can’t attribute the problem to innate differences in ability.

The most successful women I know in science either never had kids or had them very young and started their career afterwards.

The original article is an opinion piece by the author of a study that has been submitted to an academic journal. For all we know, the paper will crash and burn in peer review. And even if it doesn't, it still needs to be published so we can look at the methodology for cogent discussion.

So until the paper is published, there's no story here.

Many studies suggest that women scientists aspiring to careers in academe face roadblocks, including bias -- implicit or overt -- in hiring. But a new study is throwing a curveball into the literature, suggesting that women candidates are favored 2 to 1 over men for tenure-track positions in the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Could it be that STEM gender diversity and bias awareness efforts are working, or even creating a preference for female candidates -- or is something more nuanced going on? Experts say it’s probably both.

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But the pair’s new experimental paper -- also in PNAS -- is an effective takedown of that last assumed bias: hiring, especially in math-intensive disciplines. They argue that past studies of gender bias in STEM hiring don’t focus on faculty positions, where there isn’t really a problem.

“Although the point of entry into the professoriate is just one step in female faculty’s journey at which gender bias can occur, it is an extremely important one,” the paper says. “We hope that the discovery of an overall 2 to 1 preference for hiring women over otherwise identical men will help counter self-handicapping and opting out by talented women at the point of entry to the STEM professoriate, and suggest that female underrepresentation can be addressed in part by increasing the number of women applying for tenure-track positions.”