I’m at an Indigitek event at Google. Nancia J. Guivarra and Wayne Denning will be speaking about how to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Derek Harte from Google begins the event, speaking on importance of diversity on innovation and importance of Indigenous talent to the future of technology.
Continue reading Indigitek Presents Wayne Denning and Nancia Guivarra
There is increased pressure for conferences and events to stop excluding women as speakers, in science and in other fields. Yet there is less public attention on racial equity and representation of other minorities on panels. I take a look at a few recent examples where White people will focus on lack of “50/50 gender balance.” This phrase is often a proxy for seeing White cisgender people as the desired equilibrium. This excludes Indigenous people, other racial minorities and other under-represented groups. Let’s review what happened when the Royal Society of New Zealand announced its 150th anniversary celebration, the committee debating Brexit, and the pattern on social media, where White women unfollow gender discussions that focus on racial justice.
Continue reading Equity and Race in Discussions of “Gender Balanced” Panels
Dr Ellen Ochoa, a Mexican-American scientist with a PhD in electrical engineering, was the first Latina in space. Twenty-four years later, on May 19 2017, having already been awarded NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, she’ll be inducted into the USA Astronaut Hall of Fame. Continue reading Ellen Ochoa First Latin Woman to be Inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame
Luke Briscoe, Co-Founder of Indigilab, sings about how one day the land will be returned to the traditional custodians of Australia, Aboriginal sand Torres Strait Islanders. His message was the hope that Indigenous culture and science will be recognised for its unique and important contribution to Australian society.
He also spoke about constitutional recognition of Indigenous people and he presented the Indigenous Science Declaration to the March for Science organisers.
I attended the March for Science as part of my participant observation research, and specifically to hear Briscoe speak and in solidarity of underrepresented scientists.
On Friday the 11th of March, I travelled to Auckland New Zealand for Kiwi Foo, a two-and-a-half day “unconference” where 150 participants from New Zealand and other parts of the world from a wide range of professional backgrounds self-organise the sessions. This includes people from technology companies, policy and community organisations, as well as academics . The idea behind Foo Camp is to bring together like-minded individuals who might otherwise not meet, and listen to one another and look for ways to connect in our common goal to make the world a better place.
In order to attend, one must be nominated by a previous Foo alumn from Kiwi camp or SciFoo from the UK. You pay for your own travel but all other costs, including food and lodging if you want it, are provided. When you accept the invitation, you nominate three keywords. Upon arrival, in a large hall filled with around three hundred people, each person stands up to introduce themselves by their name, their affiliation and their keywords, without elaboration. It took awhile but it was really fun. I went representing myself (and this blog!) and my three keywords were: gender equity & diversity; science communication; sociology.
Kiwi Foo proved to be one of the most personally challenging but most rewarding experiences I’ve had. It was an insightful sociological weekend. This is part one of two posts. Part one focuses on what I learned, how I was inspired, and why you should jump at the chance to go, should you get a chance. Part two contains my talk, Informed and practical ways to enhance gender equity and diversity in STEMM. Continue reading Sociology of Kiwi Foo, an Unconference
I’ve been quoted in this article in the New Scientist concerning the critique of a new study that argues women are not disadvantaged in science hiring. Please read it as Lisa Grossman has included excellent discussion by scientists Katie Mack and Lucianne Walkowicz addressing why talking about inequality in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is necessary for increased equality and diversity.
“Williams and Ceci do not have data to support how scientists rank potential candidates,” writes sociologist Zuleyka Zevallos. “They have produced data about how scientists respond to a study about gender bias in academia, when they can easily guess that gender bias is being observed.”
A new article on CNN by psychology professors, Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci, boldly proclaims that gender bias in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is a myth. Their research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Unfortunately, their work has a flawed methodological premise and their conclusions do not match their study design. This is not the first time these researchers have whipped up false controversy by decrying the end of sexism in science.
Williams and Ceci write on CNN:
Many female graduate students worry that hiring bias is inevitable. A walk through the science departments of any college or university could convince us that the scarcity of female faculty (20% or less) in fields like engineering, computer science, physics, economics and mathematics must reflect sexism in hiring.
But the facts tell a different story…
Our results, coupled with actuarial data on real-world academic hiring showing a female advantage, suggest this is a propitious time for women beginning careers in academic science. The low numbers of women in math-based fields of science do not result from sexist hiring, but rather from women’s lower rates of choosing to enter math-based fields in the first place, due to sex differences in preferred careers and perhaps to lack of female role models and mentors.
While women may encounter sexism before and during graduate training and after becoming professors, the only sexism they face in the hiring process is bias in their favour.
Williams and Ceci’s data show that, amongst their sample, women and male faculty say they would not discriminate against a woman candidate for a tenure-track position at a university. Sounds great, right? The problem is the discrepancy between their study design, that elicits hypothetical responses to hypothetical candidates in a manner that is nothing like real-world hiring conditions, and the researchers’ conclusions, which is that this hypothetical setting dispels the “myth” that women are disadvantaged in academic hiring. The background to this problem of inequality is that this is not a myth at all: a plethora of robust empirical research already shows that, not only are there less women in STEM fields, but that women are less likely to be hired for STEM jobs, as well as promoted, remunerated and professionally recognised in every respect of academic life.
Continue reading The Myth About Women in Science? Bias in the Study of Gender Inequality in STEM
Biologist Dr D. N. Lee has been doing an amazing job educating on how enthusiastic narratives of “colonising” Mars are problematic. On her Twitter, Lee notes that the dominant ways of talking about colonisation add to the marginalisation of under-represented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). If we want to make science more inclusive, we need to better understand how the stories we tell about STEM may exclude and damage under-represented groups we are trying to support.
Continue reading Rethinking the Narrative of Mars Colonisation
Today I found out that one of my publications, a peer-reviewed conference paper which is available free online, was published without my consent on a journal that I’ve never submitted to. What makes matters worse is that the journal is charging $48 for access for a paper that is freely available on the original conference website! The university that I’m affiliated with doesn’t have a subscription to this journal so I can’t check what the published piece looks like. I can’t check if my work has been edited in any way.
I’ve written to the original editor of the conference proceedings to clarify things, but it got me thinking about how confusing academic publications have increasingly become. It can be tough to sort out what’s happening to our content as previous papers are cross-published online. For junior scholars, it can be tricky to work out which journals have a reputable editorial board. So what can we do to protect our work? Continue reading Scholarship Copyright
A new study by Dr Corinne Moss-Racusin and colleagues has analysed the public’s comments in response to a prominent study on gender bias in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The researchers find that men are more likely to post negative comments in response to scientific findings about sexism in STEM careers. To provide a flipside illustration, I share some examples of what it is like to be a woman moderator of a large, international science community on Google+. This case study will illustrate the recurring arguments used to invalidate the science on inequality in STEM. These arguments are focused on biological (mis)understandings of gender; stereotypes of what motivates men and women; and a desire to police the boundaries of science. Denying that sexism exists is a common tactic to invalidating the science on gender bias in science, and attacking the social sciences is concurrently used to discredit findings on inequality, as well as support the idea that inequality does not exist in STEM.
The Other Sociologist 