Our Picks for June 14th!

This week we have some bad news and some good news! Don't worry, the bad news isn't necessarily all bad -- it's good that these issues are being brought to light. We'll start with the bad and end on a happy note!

The bad news

Why aren't we doing research on female mice?

Dr. Rebecca Shansky, a professor at Northeastern Univeristy, points out that lots of studies use exclusively male mice and points out that, well, this doesn't really make any sense. The argument has always been that female hormones will cause too much variation between animals. But, as Shansky points out, that's kind of a bogus argument because, um, males have hormones, too. Read more about it in the links.

Black and Latinx women face double the bias when applying to postdocs

A new study using the old trick of distributing CVs with the same qualifications but different names demonstrated that faculty hiring postdocs in physics showed an extra large amount of bias against Black and Latinx women. Faculty rated female-sounding names as less competent than male-sounding names, and they rated Black and Latinx women as even less competent than their white or Asian female counterparts. Read more about it here.

Other bad news:

-60% of male managers say they feel uncomfortable working with women in light of #MeToo
-Male characters on children's TV shows use STEM skills to solve problems, whereas female characters use magic
-A Stanford professor fired over sexual misconduct blames he behavior on "different cultural norms" (yes, another professor, same excuse)

The good news

Celebrate Women in STEM!

We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. Is the first moon-landing-related scientist that comes to your mind Neil Armstrong? Change that by reading about these women who helped us land on the moon and about pioneering women in STEM today!

Support Women in STEM!

Earth and Space Science news brings us actionable strategies to support women in STEM! We recommend sharing them with your male colleagues in STEM, too!

Other good news:
-The NIH director released a statement against manels (i.e., all-male panels)!
-Women today say you can really have it all
-The fraction of women authors on medical research papers is increasing!
-The CEO of the Girl Scouts tells us how to advance women in tech
-Modern tech is making education more accessible!

This week's picks

I'm sure a lot of us have done animal research (I'm still in the thick of it). Utilizing animals in research allows for us to model various pathologies observed in humans and help answer questions we wouldn't be able to answer using human subjects alone. But there's a major problem -- a lot of this research is being done primarily in male laboratory animals. Why is this a problem? Well, males and females can experience health issues differently -- so results from experiments utilizing only male subjects may not generalize to females. An example of this in human research is found in a recent New York Times article describing that although half of HIV patients are females, most research subjects are men. How can we be sure that clinical trials that are validated only in men can be effective in women?

When experiments are not run in females, we simply do not know how females react or experience various conditions. Often times, researchers point to the fact that females have hormonal fluctuations that make it difficult analyze experimental results reliably. But is this really a valid reason to omit females from research? Dr. Rebecca Shansky wrote an excellent piece on this subject entitled "Are hormones a 'female problem' for animal research?"

Keeping the theme of inclusivity, check out the Equity in STEM Community Convening. This is a great opportunity to meet like-minded scientists who are interested in helping the STEM community become more diverse and inclusive moving forward. After all, progress in science doesn't happen as a result of stagnancy!

A topic that will surely come up at this meeting is the topic of motherhood. Women in STEM already face plenty of challenges in the field as a marginalized group, but consider how much more complicated things get when you factor in the idea of motherhood. The STEM field is only just getting adjusted to having women around in the first place, now we have to consider the idea of accommodating mothers! But is it really just "motherhood?" Is being a parent only a woman's issue? What kind of changes need to happen concerning the topic of motherhood and work? Read on in this article to find out more.

Thanks for stopping by!

May 25 picks!

Hello everyone, 

We hope you had an interesting and productive week! Our team read the articles below: 

In this piece, Dr. Aarthi Gobinath (neuroscientist studying how stress differently affects male and female brains, @aarthigobinath) discusses the importance of including female subjects in research, and how the lack of consideration of sex differences explains sub par treatment results for women. 

A while ego, we highlighted in this blog the initiative "Request a Women Scientist", aiming to decrease the under representation of women in scientific panels, meetings and boards by providing a list of women scientists worldwide in all fields (if you are not on it, go join a pod!!). We were happy to read in this article that 11 months following its creation in January 2018, the database racked up a list of researchers from 174 different scientific disciplines in 133 countries. The progression of this initiative was recently published in PLoS Biology.

Receiving funding to perform research is one of the pillars of Academia. This article describes how language used in grant proposals is different between men and women applicants, and how that difference causes an imbalance resulting in men receiving more funding even when the review was blinded.

This thought-provoking commentary by Christine Middleton (associate editor at Physics Today)  reflects on the Katie Bouman/black hole controversy, and argues that the media focuses too much on looks when describing women scientists.

See you next week!

This week's picks

Hello everyone!

For those of you in academia, happy end of the semester!

If you're an educator, you may have noticed a disparity in your student population. This article by the Washington Post delves into the question as to why black and Latino students drop out of STEM majors at higher rates than their white peers. Perhaps one way to circumvent this disparate tendency is for institutions to take advantage of the Inclusive Excellence initiative by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This initiative allows for up to 30 schools to apply for grants to help promote diversity and inclusivity within their STEM programs. Is your institution on the list? If not, perhaps you can apply!

Speaking of inclusivity, there is always more to learn when it comes to how women fare in the STEM world. A recent paper highlighted that only 10% of children will depict a woman when asked to draw a scientist. Although 10% isn't particularly high, consider that in previous decades, this statistic was  only 1%! In order to combat this kind of perception, the organization 500 Women Scientists has compiled a database called Request a Woman Scientist so that women scientists will have more representation when it comes to public speaking events, consultations, or having their voice heard in the media. A recent study surveyed the women in this database, and one of the authors, Elizabeth McCullagh, sat down with Laboratory Equipment for an interview about this recent study investigating the effects Request a Woman Scientist has had.

We're always talking about inclusivity, and interventions to promote diversity in STEM, but what if there are unintended consequences, good or bad? This article in Psypost discusses potential negative consequences that come with these kinds of interventions.

Lastly, if you're looking to join an organization, consider checking out NEURONEXXT, a network for women in neuroscience.

Thanks for stopping by!

Our Picks for May 1, 2019

Show Me the Data: Studies on Bias and Sexual Harassment

Does Bias Training Fix Bias?

According to a new study in PNAS, bias training has limited effects on bias. They found that bias training aimed at preventing gender and racial bias had positive effects on attitudes of both men and women. However, bias training did not seem to have large effects on behavior, especially in men. This data suggests that if we want to get rid of bias, we need to do more than just one-off bias trainings!

Sexual Harassment Drives Women out of Physics

A recent study showed that almost 3/4 of undergraduate physics majors experience sexual harassment. They further show that experiencing sexual harassment decreases the likelihood that women stay in physics, decreases the feeling of belonging and increases imposter syndrome. For a good summary of the study and its context, see this piece by Julie Libarkin.

Thoughts, Observations, and News on Women in Science

Erika Jefferson asks where the black women leaders are in science. In 2017, only 5% of managerial STEM jobs were held by black women--we need to do better! One way to improve these numbers is to train black women in STEM to be leaders. And Jefferson has started Black Women in Science and Engineering (BWISE), a mentoring organization to do just that -- check it out!

Christine Liu asks whether the focus on imposter syndrome as a problem that's all in our heads is keeping us from changing what really causes it: a toxic environment.

The National Academy of Sciences has a plan to remove members convicted of sexual harassment.