杏吧原创

When began her career as a neurobiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, she kept seeing fantastic female students having their confidence knocked. Many dropped out of science altogether after their PhDs. 鈥淚 felt compelled to do something,鈥� she says.

So, three years ago, Raymond started a , looking at gender issues in neuroscience. The group shares its resources online, and since its initiation similar groups have sprung up in the university鈥檚 linguistics and biochemistry departments. Clearly, gender is a topic that a lot of people want to talk about.

It鈥檚 easy to see why. Over the past 20 years in the US, . However, that growth hasn鈥檛 followed through into the nation鈥檚 senior science and engineering faculties, where .

In certain fields, the dropout figures soar even earlier in women鈥檚 careers. While women hold about 20 per cent of bachelor degrees in engineering in the US, they only go on to make up about 11 per cent of the engineering workforce. The science community is losing a talented workforce. How can we plug the leaking pipeline?

The female force

Beyond the moral imperative to be fair, there is no doubt that organizations with limited diversity are weaker as a result. A lack of gender balance has been found to affect everything from the quality of professional practice to the productivity of a team. One found that women leaders in the boardroom bring empathy, intuition and communication skills that men do not. , an organizational psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has even shown that the collective intelligence of teams 鈥� a predictive measure of performance much like a group IQ 鈥� is correlated with the number of women on them. Her work suggests that a better gender balance makes for smarter groups.

So, if the benefits are clear, why are women underrepresented in science? One reason is that stereotypes hinder their career growth. These gender-based notions can be reinforced even without any explicit comments from either sex, and are often the result of numerous subtle cultural norms. These can shape people鈥檚 concepts of science and scientists well before grad school, and their effects can be remarkable. Merely being told that women are worse at math stunts female performance on math tests, for example.

As long as these stereotypes persist, women will have a weight on their minds at work, says , a social psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an additional cognitive burden that men don鈥檛 have.鈥�

Women can face bias as well as general stereotypes. Successive small slights during hiring and career progression can add up to a large disadvantage throughout a woman鈥檚 career.

What makes this bias hard to avoid, however, is that both perpetrators and victims may initially be unconscious of it. 鈥淲e鈥檙e wrong to think we know when we鈥檙e being biased or not,鈥� says , a systems neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. 鈥淲e like this idea that we know all the factors that weigh in on our decisions, but as someone who studies decision-making, I can say with authority that we don鈥檛.鈥�

As a result, female job applicants have a tougher time landing research placements. To investigate the unconscious bias of science faculty, at Yale University in Connecticut sent research groups across the US r茅sum茅s from fictional applicants. Although the applicants鈥� qualifications were identical, r茅sum茅s from 鈥淛ohn鈥� were received more favourably than those from 鈥淛ennifer鈥�. Both male and female .

鈥淭he problem is that at the point of evaluation, we give men a little more credit than women,鈥� says , a cognitive psychologist at Hunter College in New York. 鈥淚t鈥檚 as if men have a little plus sign next to their names and women have a minus.鈥�

Breaking the mold

Fortunately, countering bias can be simple. Increasing the profile of female scientists is one solution. Churchland has developed 鈥� a roster of qualified female speakers she drafted when her male colleagues complained about a lack of diversity at computational neuroscience meetings.

Education offers a more long-term solution, says Erin Cadwalader, a policy fellow at the non-profit in Alexandria, Virginia. A better awareness of unconscious bias can help decision-makers on faculty boards and recruitment teams avoid biased hiring practices.

AWIS is one of a growing number of organizations that offers mentoring and support to women scientists. Field-specific organizations, such as the and the , mentor and advocate for their female members, for example.

Behind these initiatives there is a stronger political movement. The , under review by the Science, Space, and Technology Committee of the House of Representatives, would require federal science agencies to draft new policies to reduce bias during grant reviews.

The benefits of keeping women in science will be significant. 鈥淭rying to get rid of bias is not just about being nice or fair. It鈥檚 really about trying to take full advantage of the talent pool that鈥檚 available,鈥� says Raymond.

鈥淲hen we鈥檙e losing part of the talent pool, we鈥檙e losing not just those people, we鈥檙e losing the discoveries they would have made had we kept them in the game.鈥�