tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post7180306934388704296..comments2024-03-25T02:33:41.590-05:00Comments on FemaleScienceProfessor: The Odd WomenFemale Science Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15288567883197987690noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-81231154287600797462011-03-10T16:14:49.287-06:002011-03-10T16:14:49.287-06:00I am amazed a physical sciences professor would as...I am amazed a physical sciences professor would ask this question. <br /><br />The first commenter had the right idea. If p is the fraction of women and q the fraction of men in the field;<br /><br />Mean no. of women in a team<br />of n members = np<br /><br />Standard Deviation = npq<br /><br />They teach this in high school.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-35885079377094461802011-03-09T02:19:41.319-06:002011-03-09T02:19:41.319-06:00The point is that no matter what you do, (some) wo...The point is that no matter what you do, (some) women will always feel like they were treated differently because of their sex (got/did not get money BECAUSE of being female). As long as you have this view there is no way you can move towards a less gender biased treatment since you define the treatment as gender biased no matter the outcome.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-36154016253672915402011-03-08T09:24:18.030-06:002011-03-08T09:24:18.030-06:00but does that mean that you would have a problem w...but does that mean that you would have a problem with an all-female collaboration on a project?cesiumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-47775650609855878512011-03-08T09:06:54.184-06:002011-03-08T09:06:54.184-06:00In my opinion, as long as the proportion of women ...In my opinion, as long as the proportion of women in collaboration X is not consistently statistically different from 50% then there is not an over or under representation.<br /><br />Unfortunately it seems that in the Physical Sciences there still is a consistent statistical underrepresentation of women.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-50223180805897233902011-03-08T07:14:42.906-06:002011-03-08T07:14:42.906-06:00The statistical possibility of three women PIs is ...The statistical possibility of three women PIs is low in certain fields like physics or electrical engg; Having said that, Funding panels tend to be notoriously biased on many issues-mainly the reputation of the schools concerned plays a big role. There is some gender bias but generally if a woman makes to the point of being a PI, she is already over the worst.Revathihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11904726102610549954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-39483654779647964382011-03-07T18:10:04.110-06:002011-03-07T18:10:04.110-06:00What is the scaling law of diversity importance wi...What is the scaling law of diversity importance with team size?<br />Certainly a collaboration of 100 scientists that excluded an identifiable subgroup would fail the smell test, while just any two scientists collaborating would (probably) be not very remarkable.Materialisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17212265123565984739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-56201473602562263352011-03-07T17:27:28.001-06:002011-03-07T17:27:28.001-06:00This makes me think a bit about job search gender ...This makes me think a bit about job search gender balance - where 0-1 women out of 3-4 candidates is seen as 'normal' but 2 or more women is seen as unduly female-biased and I'm in the life sciences where we get about half the PhDs!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-84169736703741411962011-03-07T16:20:48.904-06:002011-03-07T16:20:48.904-06:00Wait, were they saying that a proposal with 3 fema...Wait, were they saying that a proposal with 3 female co-PIs wouldn't get funded because there's something bad about having 3 female co-PIs? Or were they saying that it won't get funded because the panels are sexist?<br /><br />The first, of course, is garbage. The second, sadly, might be true in many cases, though obviously it turned out to not be an issue in this case.Alexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-22132484013794233902011-03-07T12:57:41.834-06:002011-03-07T12:57:41.834-06:00While I agree with James that even if research tea...While I agree with James that even if research teams are gender blind a three woman PI proposal is not be statistically anonymous. But, many research teams (at least in my field) are not gender blind -- we work with people we like and who we know well. Most of my friends are male. Most of my outside the university collaborations are with men that I was in grad school or a post doc with or met over beer at a conference (never in the bathroom though!). <br /><br />At the university it is quite different. Here I work with the people I have come to know locally and who are most interested in working together. More than 50% of these people are women. Through them I have come to know (socially as well as scientifically) more women further afield and so do not expect to remain on all male multi-university proposals for much longer.<br /><br />For me the social interactions are as important as the scientific ones in getting projects started. Given that I see that as normal as a man I see no reason why that would be different for women and am never surprised to see all woman authored papers or proposals.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-19630181680351073492011-03-07T11:43:50.034-06:002011-03-07T11:43:50.034-06:00So there shouldn't be more women in a departme...So there shouldn't be more women in a department or unit or project than corresponds to the proportion of women in that field or else men are being discriminated against? Talk about ceilings.. and that one wouldn't be made of glass.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-89831514589800202552011-03-07T09:47:02.449-06:002011-03-07T09:47:02.449-06:00James's analysis seems reasonable to me. For ...James's analysis seems reasonable to me. For Anonymous at 8:49, <i>'what proportion of women do you have to hire before you are perceived as giving an unfair advantage to women or, gasp, "only hiring women?" '</i><br />If the gender balance of your hiring is very different from the gender balance of your applicant pool, there is reason to suspect that gender bias affects the hiring process. In some fields, hiring more that 25% women does require some affirmative action, and in other fields hiring more men than women would be indicative of gender bias, as the pools are predominantly female. Since you did not indicate what field you were in, we can't tell whether the pools you hire from are 25-30% women.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-813321228317320862011-03-07T08:49:39.196-06:002011-03-07T08:49:39.196-06:00Great post.
A related question, what proportion o...Great post.<br /><br />A related question, what proportion of women do you have to hire before you are perceived as giving an unfair advantage to women or, gasp, "only hiring women?"<br /><br />In my experience, 25-30%.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-71126965144632722632011-03-07T01:07:24.969-06:002011-03-07T01:07:24.969-06:00Well, there is some simple combinatorics here. If ...Well, there is some simple combinatorics here. If the proportion of women in the field is p and the formation of teams is entirely gender-blind then the proportions of 3-person teams with 3,2,1,0 men (and therefore 0-3 women) will be q^3, 3q^2p, 3qp^2, p^3 respectively where q=1-p is the proportion of men (and obviously this generalises to other sizes of teams). So the obvious questions are, what is the proportion of females (at a suitable career stage) in this particular field, and how common are the different gender splits?<br /><br />If the empirical proportions are widely divergent from the above probabilities, then it would suggest that the process of collaboration is not entirely gender-blind. Not that this is necessarily a problem, or that its absence means everything is peachy, either.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.com