Is there still bias in academic science? There is definitely unequal representation in some areas. The social sciences, for example, is 70 percent women while physics is 70 percent men, but there is no evidence that either gender is being blocked out.
Instead, there is second order sociological claims of stereotype threat, with the NSF funding games like Gender Bias Bingo, but there is little evidence that there is still bias - instead, studies for years have shown that women have been over-represented in hiring. The numbers remain unequal because academics get tenure, and people are working longer than ever, so men still have more jobs - but when new jobs open up, women have been more likely to get them.
In other fields, like math, women in surveys don't prefer them. It's no surprise, math is a language and there are lots of people who don't like making a tool their career, but sociologists and the social sciences still try to make that sexism.
But the numbers do not show it. Instead, women are preferred, in a way that is even more lopsided now, according to a new paper.
Writing at Real Clear Science, Alex Berezow details the latest finding. Engineering, generally regarded as sexist because fewer women are in the field, preferred women 2:1. It shows in salaries also - engineering actually pays women far more equal to men, compared to female-heavy fields like environmentalism, or groups that pay lip service to equal pay, like Congress and the White House. In biology, the ratio was about the same. Unsurprisingly, psychology did, but that is heavily women. Only economics showed no preference.
So what gives? As I have written about before, women are less likely to apply, for numerous reasons - calling male academics sexist probably adds to reasons not to want to remain in academia. And the motherhood thing. Though the private sector is quite good about parenthood - lots of female doctors do just fine - academia is behind the times. But it isn't sexism, it is pressure to get published and get another grant, where one person in a small lab has an enormous impact.
Still, women who choose to spend time with their families more are probably not wrong - a whole lot of men in science wish they had made the same choice.
But one thing is going to be true now and in the future - you won't get the job if you don't apply. And you still have to win on merit.
