Selected articles for this week

As always, we try to bring you the latest news and studies surrounding issues women face in STEM and academia. In hopes to start these conversations and make progress to a more equal environment, we hope you find these posts helpful.

As members of the STEM community, we want to see the data! BBC News recently reviewed an article titled: Gender equality: 'No room at the top for women scientists.' Although women make up nearly 50% of all undergraduate and graduate students, disparate representation occurs at higher rungs of the academic ladder due to issues of harassment, limited opportunities, and exclusion.

Additionally, a nice paper from Nature reports that Committees with implicit biases promote fewer women when they do not believe gender bias exists. Previous research has relied on self-reporting when it comes to the controversial representation of women, which omits the very possible influence of implicit bias, while the current article analyzed real-world applications. In an effort to combat these gender biases, another Nature paper offers some insight on How to ban manels and manferences from scientific meetings.

One very real example of the exclusion of women can be found in Forbes's recently published '100 Most Innovative Leaders.' And of those 100, guess how many were women? One. Just 1 out of 100. How can this be? Read on here to learn more about how companies and institutions are taking more steps at becoming self-aware.

On the flip-side, a great win for women can be found in AAAS If/Then Ambassadors initiative. One hundred and twenty-five women across the United States were selected to take part in this opportunity in which they will connect with students both in person and through various channels of social media to promote. The goal for this initiative is to provide role models who represent the diverse array of STEM careers and opportunities that exist in all facets of life -- from entertainment to academia. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Our picks for Sep 6th!

Welcome back everyone! 

We hope you had a relaxing summer, and are ready to start a productive and fun academic year. For all our readers in the South of the US, we hope hurricane season is not causing too much trouble and everybody is safe. 

Below what we have been reading during the break: 

In this preprint, authors examined how gender and nationality impact peer-review at all levels (author, editor and peer-reviewers). They analyzed peer-review outcomes of all of the submissions to the journal eLife between 2012 and 2017, and showed that mixed-gender reviewers teams lead to more equitable outcomes, whereas the likelihood of accepting a paper increases if the gatekeepers (editor and reviewers) share the same country than the authors. On this topic, NPP published a follow up study on gender balance and journal function. It highlights NPP's efforts to increase mindfulness of gender balance in journal function and presents the latest data on women representation at NPP. In addition, this preprint brings to light the persistent under-representation of science led by women in high profile journals. The study spanned 15 high-profile multidisciplinary and neuroscience journals for 2005-2017. Similarly, this study established a bias against female instructors' ratings by students compared to male instructors, and how statements about implicit bias can slightly help prevent this inclination.

In this article, author Dr. Tina M. Iverson briefly exposes her experience applying for grants using her full name or only her initials, and how the rate of successful applications drastically change (up to 5 fold variation) as a function of her name being gender neutral or not...

During the summer, this article became viral on #AcademicTwitter. In it, post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center, Dr. Troy Vettese, explains how sexism is prominent at all levels of Academia. The piece is a long read, but the level of detail and meticulous research makes the message even more powerful...and daunting. Highly recommended. 

Outside of Academia, this article published in The Guardian dives deep into the difference between genders regarding "me time" and how this can deeply impact creativity and productivity.

To celebrate Women's Equality Day (celebrated in the US on August 26), PEW Charitable Trusts asked female scientists their opinion on what is needed to recruit and retain the next generation of female scientists. Some of their responses might surprise you! 

Catch up with us next week for more articles on #WomenInSTEM.