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[alway]

https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/newsroom/newsn/2700/new-research-proves-gender-bias-extraordinarily-prevalent-in-stem-careers

The experiment, done on both female and male hiring managers showed that when the hiring manager had no other information other than a candidate’s gender, they were twice as likely to hire a man than a woman, because they incorrectly believed that men are more talented in science and math, the researchers found. This bias often led to hiring the less–capable job seeker.

when the candidates were allowed to tell the managers how well they will perform; women were still only half as likely to be hired as men, the study showed. Unlike men, women who indicated that they will score higher that their competitors were overlooked.

When hiring managers were given information about the candidates’ actual performance, the bias against women was reduced, but not eliminated

Or in short: On first impression, men are twice as likely to be given a job when no information is available, twice as likely to be given a job when told about past experience (aka, the entire point of a resume) with those women who claimed to do well passed over, and even with hard stats available, men were more likely to be hired.


And not only are there studies well-documenting sexism in STEM fields; there are even studies about how men ignore studies like the above: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/43/13201.full.pdf

[Skyrunner]

What's next, studies about how men ignore studies about how men ignore studies?

[O.Wilde]

What's next, studies about how men ignore studies about how men ignore studies?

I mean, probably warranted.

[Orange Wizard]

Or in short: On first impression, men are twice as likely to be given a job when no information is available, twice as likely to be given a job when told about past experience (aka, the entire point of a resume) with those women who claimed to do well passed over, and even with hard stats available, men were more likely to be hired.

Ewwwwww.

[i2amroy]

I know just a few months ago I saw this excellent 50min or so long video that was a discussion panel between two ivy league professors (one male one female) on the exact topic of the wage gap and how it related value-wise to potential discrimination as a cause. It was definitely a very relevant discussion by two people who know way more about this topic than us; I'm trying to track it down.

That said here were a few of the nifty relevant points:
1) Both agreed that what was acting was a combination of some discrimination, some cultural influences and some biological tendencies. For part of this they looked at some studies that looked at cultures that had very different values than the typical European one, and found that, at least in part, women tended to seek out much of the same jobs, and tended to have a lower pay, despite the different culture and discrimination things.
2) In general (note, I'm not saying they said this applied to 100% of women! This was a very broad generality, and if I'm able to track down the discussion I'll be able to tell you exactly how broad) the studies looked at values and found that much more often men tend to be more interested in "object-driven" jobs, such as scientists, engineers, etc., while women tend to be much more interested in "people-driven" jobs such as nursing or jobs that interact with clients. Part of our culture, however, tends to value "object-driven" jobs such as engineering higher than many "people-drive" jobs, and thus places a higher wage on them. One notable exception in the other direction they brought up is the field of nursing, which is a "people-driven" job and in which case many of the wages for women were just as high as those in the engineering fields.
3) Nursing was brought up as a relevant point several times, in that it's a field that essentially functions as the opposite of a STEM field gender-wise, and pays almost as well. It was somewhat discussed if the fact that we had some 9 women to every 1 male in the nursing field meant that we were not putting enough effort into drawing in male nurses, and how that example related.
4) Both professors agreed that at this point we simply do not have enough data to actually be able to draw a line in how much of the wage gap is related to discrimination/cultural stereotypes and how much could be related to a larger amount of biological predispositions. They both agreed that at this point much of the data is showing that the dominoes could fall either way, and until we have more data the opinion largely comes down to the individual opinions of the person or professor; there simply isn't enough data out there yet to clarify exactly how much of the wage gap is being contributed by each source.

I'll continue looking for that video. For now I'd like to remind everyone here that I don't think there are any of us here who would be willing to say that there is no discrimination in the workplace period (be that in either direction). We're all at least somewhat on the same side, so please remember to stay civil to each other and try not to get too hung up on the little details, since we pretty much all agree that there is somewhat of a problem, the only question is exactly how big it is (which, as noted by the professors in the video I'm searching for, is something we really just don't have enough data to nail down yet).

[Orange Wizard]

3) Nursing was brought up as a relevant point several times, in that it's a field that essentially functions as the opposite of a STEM field gender-wise, and pays almost as well.

what

[i2amroy]

3) Nursing was brought up as a relevant point several times, in that it's a field that essentially functions as the opposite of a STEM field gender-wise, and pays almost as well.

what

IIRC it's sort of a case where the starting level in entry level/bachelors level nursing is a fair bit lower than in many of the STEM fields (and thus drags the average down), but once you get to the Masters degree certification level than the averages are very similar between them and many STEM fields.

Edit Note: Again, I'm trying to remember parts of a discussion panel I watched a couple months back, so I might not be remembering exact numbers totally correctly. I do remember that they were similar enough that the professors thought it an interesting point to bring up as a counterpoint comparison on wages vs. gender discrimination.

[Reelya]

An interesting study of hiring of lab staff found gender bias, with male applicants being offered more money. That in itself isn't very interesting, the interesting part is that female hirers showed a stronger anti-female bias than the male hirers.

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf

The raw stats are that male faculty would offer ~$30,520 for a man, $27,111 for a women, whereas a woman would offer $29,333 for a man, $25000 for a woman. This sort of thing complicates the picture, because it implies that if a female science applicant faces a female hirer she might actually lose out on more pay (in both raw dollars and in relative % to men) than she would otherwise.

This also implies that just sticking more women into HR/hiring positions (HR is an area that has a high proportion of women) might not be an automatic quick-fix to improve women's pay. More female decision-makers doesn't necessarily correlate with better pay for women in other words, not like the gender-blind studies.

[Arx]

You should see the great success that was South Africa's affirmative action, it ended up driving talent away, increased racial divides and income inequality and fucked their country up in such a short span it was quite impressive. For some reason killing meritocracy tends to do that.

I'd like to quickly point out that racially-based affirmative action after a long, long recent history of oppression and massively inadequate education is completely different to gender-based affirmative action in the modern, Western world.

I'm not a huge fan of either, but the one under discussion is in many ways less likely to cause issues.

[Reelya]

3) Nursing was brought up as a relevant point several times, in that it's a field that essentially functions as the opposite of a STEM field gender-wise, and pays almost as well.

what

IIRC it's sort of a case where the starting level in entry level/bachelors level nursing is a fair bit lower than in many of the STEM fields (and thus drags the average down), but once you get to the Masters degree certification level than the averages are very similar between them and many STEM fields.

Edit Note: Again, I'm trying to remember parts of a discussion panel I watched a couple months back, so I might not be remembering exact numbers totally correctly. I do remember that they were similar enough that the professors thought it an interesting point to bring up as a counterpoint comparison on wages vs. gender discrimination.

http://qz.com/182977/there-is-no-gender-gap-in-tech-salaries/
This is from the American Association of University Women's graduate pay study. These fields showed no gender pay gap for graduates, along with the average pay:

“Our analysis shows that occupations like nursing; engineering; and math, computer, and physical science occupations are the best-paying jobs for women one year out of college,” the authors Christianne Corbett and Catherine Hill report. “These tend to be occupations that are well paying throughout a career as well.”

Overall, the graduate pay rates are almost identical between nursing and all STEM areas excluding engineering.

Interesting, the author of that Quartz article, Cynthia Than points out that detailed studies looking for gender-bias in engineering and comp. science salaries turn up little evidence, but the perception that there is a bias actively turns women off entering these fields. Highlighting or exaggerating bias might have the opposite effect of that intended.

[Orange Wizard]

Overall, the graduate pay rates are almost identical between nursing and all STEM areas excluding engineering.

Okay, that's interesting. Flies in the face of common perception, in any case.

[Reelya]

BTW looking around I found this article with misleading claims about workplace homicides:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/13/3437471/women-homicide-work/

All told in 2012, 351 women died on the job. The leading cause of death was homicide – 28 percent were murdered, a sharp increase from the 8 percent killed at work in 2011. While far more men die on the job than women overall – 4,277 were killed at work that year – just 9 percent are murdered.

Why are so many women victims of homicide at work?

...except that 9% of 4277 is quite a bit more than 28% of 351 (376 men vs 99 women), and the numbers haven't actually budged since 2008 - but I put that down to the author making a mistake (8% would be about right for the male death % from homicide). The raw numbers don't imply that women are being murdered left and right while trying to work - they're a lot safer than the average man is. They're just much, much, less likely to die from all other causes as well, which makes the proportion of homicides look larger.

Women make up 25% of workplace-related homicides, so there's no evidence for this being a specifically female problem. I'll leave it at that, but I really think all victims deserve equal sympathy and protection regardless of genitalia.

I think a good case could be made that this sort of fixation on women as victims in an area where most victims are male is actually infantilizing to women. You walk outside your front door, you take your chances in modern society like everyone else, like a grown up. It's pretty clear that as workplaces equalize, so will risks - or they should, if we're treating people as responsible grown ups, so crying alarm over women sharing a small proportion of occupational risks isn't helpful.

[Reelya]

... or donglegate. After reading up about Adria Richard's history which came to her employer's attention after Donglegate, I can see why they fired her. And it wasn't just over donglegate. She has a history of massive overreaction to percieved issues at conferences (often events run by other women) and has a habit of launching twitter/podcast campaigns to try and get people to boycott your event rather than just tell you she has a problem with it. The example is from Amanda Blum:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why don’t I enjoy Adria? I met her in New York some years ago at a conference and invited her to speak at a conference I was organizing in Boston. She was a very good speaker and I wanted her to help our beginners. She’s not an easy person- she didn’t like the title of her talk, she didn’t like her time slot, etc.  Two weeks before the conference, we got a few emails from attendees that she had just threatened on her podcast to boycott our conference because one of our speakers, Danielle Morrill was giving a lightning talk about how to use screencasting software called “Getting the Money Shot”.

She’d never told us she was offended, she’d never told Danielle- she told her podcasting audience and blog readers that we were promoting porn. In the end, after great drama, she attended and deep sixed her talk, instead lecturing the attendees about how porn wasn’t acceptable at conferences. The beginners in her class were less than amused and ultimately, deprived of the opportunity to learn from her.

She wanted to be the next Anita Sarkeesian, but her only skill was mock outrage, and she was prepared to throw anyone, male or female, under the bus to get it. Btw, at the same conference she was supposedly massively outraged about dongle jokes, she was tweeting dick jokes at her friends.

[mainiac]

And not only are there studies well-documenting sexism in STEM fields; there are even studies about how men ignore studies like the above: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/43/13201.full.pdf

I am shocked, shocked to find out that people will deny the existence of sexism when they should know better.

[Reelya]

Although identical studies show women ignore studies that say the opposite. Confirmation bias is universal.

http://theconversation.com/men-and-women-biased-about-studies-of-stem-gender-bias-in-opposite-directions-48924

It would make sense to highlight that men, specifically, are biased against studies they don't agree with, if and only if you can show that women are more open-minded to research results. But that's not what the research results show.

A third study tested how people respond to studies finding no bias. This addition is important because some facets of academia such as peer review don’t always show bias. Researchers therefore randomly assigned 303 participants from the general public to read an abstract that either reported bias favoring men or reported no bias.

Here's the graph results:



As you can see, women are more biased than men, here. The men are more in the middle - which means they're more ready to accept what the research states, whereas women swing more wildly between acceptance and rejection of research papers based on whether it matches their preconceptions.

This isn't rejection of your other studies btw, it's called expanding the context to get a better picture.

Only reporting on one side's bias, when both sides show similar evidence of bias, is itself blatantly biased. Either the "men are biased" studies didn't look at women at all (which makes them circular reasoning, and the studies tainted with inbuilt bias), or only the biases discovered for men are being reported on (which makes the news media biased).