Gender Equity http://www.gender-equity.org Until women across the world are listened to as equals in their communities and their voices are heard, understood, and established. Mon, 13 May 2013 10:52:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 Are incentives and good will enough to counter gender bias in science? http://www.gender-equity.org/2013/05/13/are-incentives-and-good-will-enough-to-counter-gender-bias-in-science/ http://www.gender-equity.org/2013/05/13/are-incentives-and-good-will-enough-to-counter-gender-bias-in-science/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 10:43:11 +0000 Colleen Crangle http://www.gender-equity.org/?p=62 Continue reading →]]> Reprinted with permission.
Nature 459, 774 (11 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/459774c; Published online 10 June 2009

Stick as well as carrot needed to solve age-old gender bias

Colleen E. Crangle, Converspeech LLC, 60 Kirby Place, Palo Alto, California 94301, USA, crangle@stanfordalumni.org

Your Editorial ‘The female underclass’ highlights the problems faced by women scientists in many European countries (Nature 459, 299; 2009). I’d like to comment on the situation in the United States.

Taking the biological and medical sciences, for example: from 1990 to 2004, the percentage of traditional research awards from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) allocated to women grew from a paltry 17% to just 24% (seehttp://tinyurl.com/kvtvhc). Only 19% of tenured principal investigators at the NIH are women. These figures have hardly changed over the past decade and are dishearteningly similar to those at most academic research institutions in the country (see http://tinyurl.com/kpav3j).

Yet there have been more female than male graduate students in these fields over the same period. In 2005 the number of doctorates awarded to women overtook the number awarded to men (see http://tinyurl.com/nemfs6). Although women make up nearly half of all scientists nationwide, many abandon academic research after a decade.

What is happening to these female graduates, and what can explain the startling drop-off in figures? It’s simple. Report after report has documented gender bias. For example, the 2007 report from the US National Academies, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, categorically affirms bias against women applying for grants, employment and tenure. It asserts that a woman must have a significantly superior record to be rated on a par with a man. And it rejects out of hand the purported meritocracy that determines hiring, promotions and rewards in academic institutions.

The loss of women scientists has also been attributed to their relative lack of confidence in seeking positions and securing tenure (EMBO Reports 8, 977–981; 2007). Of course they are less confident — a woman is only too aware of the time and energy she must invest in overcoming bias and building up a “significantly superior record”.

If we ask what has worked in those European countries that have managed to curtail destructive habits of bias and exclusion, again the answer is simple. As you point out, it takes “sticks as well as carrots”. No sensible man would give up his advantage by conceding that he is intellectually inferior to a female colleague. And no university yet seems prepared to remove men who are guilty of blatant acts of bias.

What is at stake is not only justice: it is the competitiveness of science in the United States. When half of our brightest scientists leave academic research because their intelligence and common sense tell them they are wasting their considerable skills, how can we possibly generate the best science?

Reprinted with permission.
http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1038/459774c
]]> http://www.gender-equity.org/2013/05/13/are-incentives-and-good-will-enough-to-counter-gender-bias-in-science/feed/ 0 Anti-feminism – it just doesn’t make sense http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/05/23/the-illogical-anti-feminism-of-satoshi-kanazawa/ http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/05/23/the-illogical-anti-feminism-of-satoshi-kanazawa/#comments Mon, 23 May 2011 19:31:46 +0000 Colleen Crangle http://www.gender-equity.org/?p=50 Continue reading →]]> Today I came across an anti-feminist rant in Psychology Today, a magazine that I previously regarded as a reasonable source of light reading. I found the article by Satoshi Kanazawa because this week Psychology Today published another pseudo-science article by the same man, one that claims to explain why black women are less attractive than  other women.

Kanazawa is at the London School of Economics and Political Science, an institution that I previously had the highest regard for. He is in the Department of Management, and I can’t help speculating on how many minutes he would last as a manager in any self-respecting organization. Ten? Five? No, you’re right. He would never be hired.

But back to his anti-feminist rant: Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil. Don’t waste your time reading it. I give the link here just to prove that this nonsense was actually published.

And here is my game for today. How many errors of fact and logic can you spot in this short quote from his article?

Finally, modern feminism is evil because it ultimately makes women (and men) unhappy. In a forthcoming article in [a journal], [two authors] show that American women over the last 35 years have steadily become less and less happy, as they have made more and more money relative to men. Women used to be a lot happier than men despite the fact that they made much less money than men. The sex gap in happiness (in women’s favor) has declined in the past 35 years as the sex gap in pay (in men’s favor) narrowed. Now women make as much as, sometimes even more than, men do. As a result, today women are just as unhappy, or even more unhappy than, men are.

Error #1. Feminism is evil because it makes women (and men) unhappy.

It is so annoying when facts intrude. According to the report on which Kanazawa’s rant is based, subjective well-being for men (aka “happiness”) has seen a relative increase. It is more sensible to claim that feminism makes men more happy. Not a wild claim at all. True feminists have long held that feminism seeks the well-being of all people, that it wants men and women to flourish.

Error #2.   Over the last 35 years women have become less and less happy as they have made more and more money.

The implied causal connection between happiness and money in this statement is as stupid as these implied causal connections:

Over the past 35 years women have become less and less happy as the price of postage stamps has gone higher and higher.

Over the past 35 years women have become less and less happy as hem lengths have gone up and down.

Over the past 35 years women have become less and less happy as Labrador Retrievers have become more and more popular.

You get the idea.

Error #3. Now women make as much as, sometimes even more than, men do.

Another blatant disregard of the facts. See my earlier blog, What would you do with an extra 23 cents or $23,000?

Error #4. As a result of making more money, women today are just as unhappy as men.

Now the false causal connection isn’t even implied; it is baldly stated!

Had I world enough and time, I could go on dissecting the silly claims in Kanazawa’s silly article. But I have better things to do. Like earning money and working so that all people can flourish.

 

]]> http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/05/23/the-illogical-anti-feminism-of-satoshi-kanazawa/feed/ 2 Pakistan – 18% United States – 17% http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/29/pakistan-18-united-states-17/ http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/29/pakistan-18-united-states-17/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:40:01 +0000 Colleen Crangle http://www.gender-equity.org/?p=12 Continue reading →]]>

Postscript to How to Rape With Impunity …

As Mukhtaran Mai continues her life in Pakistan and her struggle for justice following her 2002 gang rape, I ask myself how is it still possible that a woman in Pakistan can be victimized twice – first by rape and then by the justice system. Here’s the good news.

In November 2006, the Women’s Protection Bill was passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan. It removed rape from under Sharia (Islamic law) and put it under the Pakistan Penal Code, based on civil law. This change eliminated the need for four witnesses to a rape and permits forensic evidence in a rape trial.

Well, about time, I thought. What a male-dominated country Pakistan must be. Out of curiosity I looked up the composition of the law-making body in Pakistan, the National Assembly. Here’s what I found.

Pakistan -18%

In Pakistan’s National Assembly, 60 out of the 336 seats are RESERVED for women. That’s 18% representation.

United States – 17%

In the United States, there are currently 360 men and 75 women in the House and 17 women and 83 men in the Senate. That’s 17% representation.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Postscript:  If you want to know more about Mukhtaran Mai, watch Mukhtaran Mai part 1 A Film by Somy Ali.

If you want to support human rights in Pakistan, see the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

 

 

]]> http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/29/pakistan-18-united-states-17/feed/ 0 How to rape with impunity in the 21st century http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/21/how-to-rape-with-impunity-in-the-21st-century/ http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/21/how-to-rape-with-impunity-in-the-21st-century/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:06:28 +0000 Colleen Crangle http://www.gender-equity.org/?p=5 Continue reading →]]> 1. Choose a woman who, you think, cannot fight back.
Mukhtaran Mai was an illiterate villager in the province of Punjab, Pakistan.

2. Manufacture a reason to punish her.
Mukhtaran Mai’s brother, who was 12 at the time, was accused of having an affair with a woman from the powerful Mastoi clan. The shame this supposedly brought on the clan was to be avenged by a gang rape of Mukhtaran.

3. Check that the law is on your side
Under Pakistan’s Hudood Ordinance, proof of rape generally required the confession of the accused or the testimony of four adult Muslim males who had witnessed the assault. Failure to prove a rape allegation — sometimes it’s just really difficult to get the rapist to come to court with his victim, and as for those four adult Muslim male witnesses, it’s a bummer coordinating their schedules — failure to prove a rape allegation puts the woman at risk of a charge of fornication or adultery. For this, she could go to prison for a long, long time, or get a public whipping, or be stoned to death. Remember that the testimony of a woman carries half the weight of a man’s testimony under this ordinance. So the old “he says, she says” works in your favor too.

4. Grab five of your friends and go for it!


Postscript 1:

Mukhtaran Mai did fight back and now, some 10 years later, has just received word that five of the six accused men have been acquitted by the Supreme Court. The sixth man has had his death sentence commuted to life in prison. Expecting the release of the five men acquitted, Mukhtaran fears for her life. But she is not leaving her village, where she runs a school for girls, and she is not keeping quiet.

Postscript 2:

See the next blog.

 

]]> http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/21/how-to-rape-with-impunity-in-the-21st-century/feed/ 1 What would YOU do with an extra 23 cents, or $23,000? http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/21/what-would-you-do-with-an-extra-23-cents-or-23000/ http://www.gender-equity.org/2011/04/21/what-would-you-do-with-an-extra-23-cents-or-23000/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:06:40 +0000 Colleen Crangle http://www.gender-equity.org/?p=3 Continue reading →]]> After all these years, a woman earns just 77 cents for every $1 a man earns in the United States. That’s according to data compiled by the Census Bureau and reported in today’s New York Times.

Why?

It’s not that women work part-time. The numbers are for women working full-time. It’s not that women are less educated. In fact, the US Department of Labor reports that over 23 percent of young women hold a bachelor’s degree (or higher) while just 14.3 percent of young men do. (That’s looking at 23-year-olds. See more figures here .) Overall, young women are more likely to graduate from high school and to attend college. Once enrolled in college, women are less likely than men to leave college without graduating.

I could go on. And I will in future postings.

For now, there is hope. The Paycheck Fairness Act has just been re-introduced in the Senate and the House. Last December, Senate Republicans kept the bill from reaching the Senate floor, where it would most likely have passed by a big majority.

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you are a woman, ask yourself: What would I do with an extra 23 cents, or an extra $23,000 this year?

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