Evidence of strong gender-bias in University hiring

[ronburgundy]

The evidence is that women are highly favored for faculty hiring in the sciences and engineering.

There is no reasonable doubt that there was a historical bias against women faculty, especially in the sciences and engineering disciplines. Many people point to current disparities in the number of women faculty and their promotion in these fields as evidence of continued bias against them, though such analysis virtually never account for objective differences in qualifications, publication record, chosen topic of study, or in who chooses to opt out of these careers during the course of study/employment to pursue other interests (hint: research shows that women are twice as likely to opt out).

A new paper presents a set of 5 controlled experiments where sets of applications were sent to a total of 873 current faculty in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 Universities across all 50 States. They used complex methods to mask the gender bias nature of the study.
The experiments differed in whether they asked faculty to rank the set of candidates against each other or just rate the hireability of a single candidate, and in the detailed descriptions of the canidates (whether they were all single, all married, no kids or had kids, and whether the females had taken a maternity leave during graduate school.

Here is their summary of the central finding:

[P]Applicants’ profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically
rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across
faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences
for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed
a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both
math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception
of male economists, who showed no gender preference.[/P]

They also found that this strong bias for females occurred regardless of marital status or parental status, and that female applicants were viewed even more favorably by male evaluators, when the female took a paternal leave during graduate school, than if they did not.

The bias occurred in all 4 disciplines they studied, and it was shown whether the applicants were directly ranked against each other or each rated separately for their "hireability", and it occurred whether the actual curriculum Vitae was viewed or whether the evaluator read an extensive detailed summary of the applicants written by a faculty hiring panel.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The evidence is that women are highly favored for faculty hiring in the sciences and engineering.

Why?

There is no reasonable doubt that there was a historical bias against women faculty, especially in the sciences and engineering disciplines. Many people point to current disparities in the number of women faculty and their promotion in these fields as evidence of continued bias against them, though such analysis virtually never account for objective differences in qualifications, publication record, chosen topic of study, or in who chooses to opt out of these careers during the course of study/employment to pursue other interests (hint: research shows that women are twice as likely to opt out

Why?

).

A new paper presents a set of 5 controlled experiments where sets of applications were sent to a total of 873 current faculty in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 Universities across all 50 States. They used complex methods to mask the gender bias nature of the study.
The experiments differed in whether they asked faculty to rank the set of candidates against each other or just rate the hireability of a single candidate, and in the detailed descriptions of the canidates (whether they were all single, all married, no kids or had kids, and whether the females had taken a maternity leave during graduate school.

Here is their summary of the central finding:

[P]Applicants’ profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically
rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across
faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences
for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed
a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both
math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception
of male economists, who showed no gender preference.[/P]

They also found that this strong bias for females occurred regardless of marital status or parental status, and that female applicants were viewed even more favorably by male evaluators, when the female took a paternal leave during graduate school, than if they did not.

The bias occurred in all 4 disciplines they studied, and it was shown whether the applicants were directly ranked against each other or each rated separately for their "hireability", and it occurred whether the actual curriculum Vitae was viewed or whether the evaluator read an extensive detailed summary of the applicants written by a faculty hiring panel.

Why would this bias exist now?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

 

[Trausti]

It's politically acceptable to discriminate against men; so what's the problem?

 

[Axulus]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

Do you think a vagina is required to be a positive role model to girls and to allow them to see the viability of focusing on those majors? How much does it help? What does the data say?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

Do you think a vagina is required to be a positive role model to girls and to allow them to see the viability of focusing on those majors? How much does it help? What does the data say?

In the time it took you to write that post, I was able to find this and others:

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/258181938_The_Influence_of_Female_Role_Models_on_Womens_Implicit_Science_Cognitions

It's not like people are trying to hide the data.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

It's politically acceptable to discriminate against men; so what's the problem?

Why?

What could have been the history that would lead to this discrimination?

 

[ronburgundy]

The evidence is that women are highly favored for faculty hiring in the sciences and engineering.

Why?

Because Affirmative Action policies promote and sometimes require gender-based bias in favor of women. This is done as a way of fighting past injustice and unfairness against persons with current injustice and unfairness against persons. Because those who support this approach have zero regard for actual people and the harm done to them. They only care that the amount of harm done is statistically equal at the group level, thus they support increasing the total harm and injustice in order to even out its distribution.

There is no reasonable doubt that there was a historical bias against women faculty, especially in the sciences and engineering disciplines. Many people point to current disparities in the number of women faculty and their promotion in these fields as evidence of continued bias against them, though such analysis virtually never account for objective differences in qualifications, publication record, chosen topic of study, or in who chooses to opt out of these careers during the course of study/employment to pursue other interests (hint: research shows that women are twice as likely to opt out

Why?

).

Why what? Why do activists pretending to be researchers misrepresent current disparities in number of faculty as evidence of continued sexism in hiring decisions? I guess because they have no integrity.
Why do women opt out of science careers to be stay at home mothers at some point during their advancement? Because that reflects their personal values and priorities? Why are those their priorities? Many reasons, but I'm sure you'll find a way to oversimplify it so that its all due to sexism.

A new paper presents a set of 5 controlled experiments where sets of applications were sent to a total of 873 current faculty in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 Universities across all 50 States. They used complex methods to mask the gender bias nature of the study.
The experiments differed in whether they asked faculty to rank the set of candidates against each other or just rate the hireability of a single candidate, and in the detailed descriptions of the canidates (whether they were all single, all married, no kids or had kids, and whether the females had taken a maternity leave during graduate school.

Here is their summary of the central finding:

[P]Applicants’ profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically
rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across
faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences
for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed
a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both
math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception
of male economists, who showed no gender preference.[/P]

They also found that this strong bias for females occurred regardless of marital status or parental status, and that female applicants were viewed even more favorably by male evaluators, when the female took a paternal leave during graduate school, than if they did not.

The bias occurred in all 4 disciplines they studied, and it was shown whether the applicants were directly ranked against each other or each rated separately for their "hireability", and it occurred whether the actual curriculum Vitae was viewed or whether the evaluator read an extensive detailed summary of the applicants written by a faculty hiring panel.

Why would this bias exist now?

I explained above why it exists now. In sum, it is because its supporters have the emotional and moral maturity of an 8 year old and do not value the principle of treating people as individuals. What is critical is that it supporters are not only ethically wrong, but factually wrong in their frequent unscientific claims that anti female bias in current faculty hiring persists and is responsible for why females still are not at equal ratios in the sciences and why female grad students are less likely to pursue academic careers.

Note that the extreme pro-female bias exists even in Psychology where half the tenure track faculty are already female, and the majority of graduate students and private practice clinicians are female. IOW, there are no group level inequalities due to historical sexism in need of being "rectified", and yet a massive bias that makes it twice as hard for males to get hired is in place.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Why?

Because Affirmative Action policies promote and sometimes require gender-based bias in favor of women. This is done as a way of fighting past injustice and unfairness against persons with current injustice and unfairness against persons. Because those who support this approach have zero regard for actual people and the harm done to them. They only care that the amount of harm done is statistically equal at the group level, thus they support increasing the total harm and injustice in order to even out its distribution.

There is no reasonable doubt that there was a historical bias against women faculty, especially in the sciences and engineering disciplines. Many people point to current disparities in the number of women faculty and their promotion in these fields as evidence of continued bias against them, though such analysis virtually never account for objective differences in qualifications, publication record, chosen topic of study, or in who chooses to opt out of these careers during the course of study/employment to pursue other interests (hint: research shows that women are twice as likely to opt out

Why?

).

Why what? Why do activists pretending to be researchers misrepresent current disparities in number of faculty as evidence of continued sexism in hiring decisions? I guess because they have no integrity.
Why do women opt out of science careers to be stay at home mothers at some point during their advancement? Because that reflects their personal values and priorities? Why are those their priorities? Many reasons, but I'm sure you'll find a way to oversimplify it so that its all due to sexism.

A new paper presents a set of 5 controlled experiments where sets of applications were sent to a total of 873 current faculty in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 Universities across all 50 States. They used complex methods to mask the gender bias nature of the study.
The experiments differed in whether they asked faculty to rank the set of candidates against each other or just rate the hireability of a single candidate, and in the detailed descriptions of the canidates (whether they were all single, all married, no kids or had kids, and whether the females had taken a maternity leave during graduate school.

Here is their summary of the central finding:

[P]Applicants’ profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically
rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across
faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences
for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed
a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both
math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception
of male economists, who showed no gender preference.[/P]

They also found that this strong bias for females occurred regardless of marital status or parental status, and that female applicants were viewed even more favorably by male evaluators, when the female took a paternal leave during graduate school, than if they did not.

The bias occurred in all 4 disciplines they studied, and it was shown whether the applicants were directly ranked against each other or each rated separately for their "hireability", and it occurred whether the actual curriculum Vitae was viewed or whether the evaluator read an extensive detailed summary of the applicants written by a faculty hiring panel.

Why would this bias exist now?

I explained above why it exists now. In sum, it is because its supporters have the emotional and moral maturity of an 8 year old and do not value the principle of treating people as individuals. What is critical is that it supporters are not only ethically wrong, but factually wrong in their frequent unscientific claims that anti female bias in current faculty hiring persists and is responsible for why females still are not at equal ratios in the sciences and why female grad students are less likely to pursue academic careers.

Note that the extreme pro-female bias exists even in Psychology where half the tenure track faculty are already female, and the majority of graduate students and private practice clinicians are female. IOW, there are no group level inequalities due to historical sexism in need of being "rectified", and yet a massive bias that makes it twice as hard for males to get hired is in place.

But how did we get to NOW?

- - - Updated - - -

Current events are preceded by history. How do you expect to understand now without dealing with that history?

 

[ronburgundy]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

This is refuted by the fact that the bias is just as strong in disciplines like psychology where 75% of the majors are already female, and half the faculty are female.
More generally, in both the life sciences and the social sciences the majority of graduates are female and their % is continually rising. The evidence is that women don't lack interest in STEM, but that many opt out of any academic career at some point (no matter how female laden) due to the greater value they place on family.
Also, having the best researchers and instructors goes a long way to getting students of any gender interested in a field. Any degree to which gender of applicants if given weight, reduces the weight given to any other factor, including research and instruction quality.

 

[ronburgundy]

Because Affirmative Action policies promote and sometimes require gender-based bias in favor of women. This is done as a way of fighting past injustice and unfairness against persons with current injustice and unfairness against persons. Because those who support this approach have zero regard for actual people and the harm done to them. They only care that the amount of harm done is statistically equal at the group level, thus they support increasing the total harm and injustice in order to even out its distribution.

There is no reasonable doubt that there was a historical bias against women faculty, especially in the sciences and engineering disciplines. Many people point to current disparities in the number of women faculty and their promotion in these fields as evidence of continued bias against them, though such analysis virtually never account for objective differences in qualifications, publication record, chosen topic of study, or in who chooses to opt out of these careers during the course of study/employment to pursue other interests (hint: research shows that women are twice as likely to opt out

Why?

).

Why what? Why do activists pretending to be researchers misrepresent current disparities in number of faculty as evidence of continued sexism in hiring decisions? I guess because they have no integrity.
Why do women opt out of science careers to be stay at home mothers at some point during their advancement? Because that reflects their personal values and priorities? Why are those their priorities? Many reasons, but I'm sure you'll find a way to oversimplify it so that its all due to sexism.

A new paper presents a set of 5 controlled experiments where sets of applications were sent to a total of 873 current faculty in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 Universities across all 50 States. They used complex methods to mask the gender bias nature of the study.
The experiments differed in whether they asked faculty to rank the set of candidates against each other or just rate the hireability of a single candidate, and in the detailed descriptions of the canidates (whether they were all single, all married, no kids or had kids, and whether the females had taken a maternity leave during graduate school.

Here is their summary of the central finding:

[P]Applicants’ profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically
rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across
faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences
for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed
a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both
math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception
of male economists, who showed no gender preference.[/P]

They also found that this strong bias for females occurred regardless of marital status or parental status, and that female applicants were viewed even more favorably by male evaluators, when the female took a paternal leave during graduate school, than if they did not.

The bias occurred in all 4 disciplines they studied, and it was shown whether the applicants were directly ranked against each other or each rated separately for their "hireability", and it occurred whether the actual curriculum Vitae was viewed or whether the evaluator read an extensive detailed summary of the applicants written by a faculty hiring panel.

Why would this bias exist now?

I explained above why it exists now. In sum, it is because its supporters have the emotional and moral maturity of an 8 year old and do not value the principle of treating people as individuals. What is critical is that it supporters are not only ethically wrong, but factually wrong in their frequent unscientific claims that anti female bias in current faculty hiring persists and is responsible for why females still are not at equal ratios in the sciences and why female grad students are less likely to pursue academic careers.

Note that the extreme pro-female bias exists even in Psychology where half the tenure track faculty are already female, and the majority of graduate students and private practice clinicians are female. IOW, there are no group level inequalities due to historical sexism in need of being "rectified", and yet a massive bias that makes it twice as hard for males to get hired is in place.

But how did we get to NOW?

- - - Updated - - -

Current events are preceded by history. How do you expect to understand now without dealing with that history?

I understand that History quite well. Just like I understand the history of an abuser that was abused themselves. Understanding why does not justify or excuse it, and still makes it a bad harmful thing to be avoided.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

This is refuted by the fact that the bias is just as strong in disciplines like psychology where 75% of the majors are already female, and half the faculty are female.
More generally, in both the life sciences and the social sciences the majority of graduates are female and their % is continually rising. The evidence is that women don't lack interest in STEM, but that many opt out of any academic career at some point (no matter how female laden) due to the greater value they place on family.
Also, having the best researchers and instructors goes a long way to getting students of any gender interested in a field. Any degree to which gender of applicants if given weight, reduces the weight given to any other factor, including research and instruction quality.

Ya, I was speaking specifically of the STEM courses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why would this bias exist now?

Because the crusaders for "justice" pretend the discrimination is still a problem and we must fight harder.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Because Affirmative Action policies promote and sometimes require gender-based bias in favor of women. This is done as a way of fighting past injustice and unfairness against persons with current injustice and unfairness against persons. Because those who support this approach have zero regard for actual people and the harm done to them. They only care that the amount of harm done is statistically equal at the group level, thus they support increasing the total harm and injustice in order to even out its distribution.

There is no reasonable doubt that there was a historical bias against women faculty, especially in the sciences and engineering disciplines. Many people point to current disparities in the number of women faculty and their promotion in these fields as evidence of continued bias against them, though such analysis virtually never account for objective differences in qualifications, publication record, chosen topic of study, or in who chooses to opt out of these careers during the course of study/employment to pursue other interests (hint: research shows that women are twice as likely to opt out

Why?

).

Why what? Why do activists pretending to be researchers misrepresent current disparities in number of faculty as evidence of continued sexism in hiring decisions? I guess because they have no integrity.
Why do women opt out of science careers to be stay at home mothers at some point during their advancement? Because that reflects their personal values and priorities? Why are those their priorities? Many reasons, but I'm sure you'll find a way to oversimplify it so that its all due to sexism.

A new paper presents a set of 5 controlled experiments where sets of applications were sent to a total of 873 current faculty in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 Universities across all 50 States. They used complex methods to mask the gender bias nature of the study.
The experiments differed in whether they asked faculty to rank the set of candidates against each other or just rate the hireability of a single candidate, and in the detailed descriptions of the canidates (whether they were all single, all married, no kids or had kids, and whether the females had taken a maternity leave during graduate school.

Here is their summary of the central finding:

[P]Applicants’ profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically
rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across
faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences
for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed
a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both
math-intensive and non–math-intensive fields, with the single exception
of male economists, who showed no gender preference.[/P]

They also found that this strong bias for females occurred regardless of marital status or parental status, and that female applicants were viewed even more favorably by male evaluators, when the female took a paternal leave during graduate school, than if they did not.

The bias occurred in all 4 disciplines they studied, and it was shown whether the applicants were directly ranked against each other or each rated separately for their "hireability", and it occurred whether the actual curriculum Vitae was viewed or whether the evaluator read an extensive detailed summary of the applicants written by a faculty hiring panel.

Why would this bias exist now?

I explained above why it exists now. In sum, it is because its supporters have the emotional and moral maturity of an 8 year old and do not value the principle of treating people as individuals. What is critical is that it supporters are not only ethically wrong, but factually wrong in their frequent unscientific claims that anti female bias in current faculty hiring persists and is responsible for why females still are not at equal ratios in the sciences and why female grad students are less likely to pursue academic careers.

Note that the extreme pro-female bias exists even in Psychology where half the tenure track faculty are already female, and the majority of graduate students and private practice clinicians are female. IOW, there are no group level inequalities due to historical sexism in need of being "rectified", and yet a massive bias that makes it twice as hard for males to get hired is in place.

But how did we get to NOW?

- - - Updated - - -

Current events are preceded by history. How do you expect to understand now without dealing with that history?

I understand that History quite well.

Which is probably why you avoid any indepth discussion of it whenever possible.

Just like I understand the history of an abuser that was abused themselves. Understanding why does not justify or excuse it, and still makes it a bad harmful thing to be avoided.

But understanding the fact that abuse happened makes the reason that beds wind up on fire understandable. And can point to ways (plural) to stop the abuse and thus the need to kill a bastard.

 

[KeepTalking]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

This is refuted by the fact that the bias is just as strong in disciplines like psychology where 75% of the majors are already female, and half the faculty are female.

Given that 75% of psych majors are female, and half of the faculty are female, how do you square this with the contention that there is a strong female bias in the hiring of University faculty?

One would think that such a bias would equate to more than 75% of psych faculty members being female, yet, according to your own data, that is not the case.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I imagine that it's because they see a need to get more young girls interested in the STEM courses, so having more female professors gives them more positive role models to be able to see the viability of focusing on those majors.

Do you think a vagina is required to be a positive role model to girls and to allow them to see the viability of focusing on those majors? How much does it help? What does the data say?

Actually yes. Role models are people you can imagine becoming. Because of this, Wonder Woman is not a role model for me.

 

[Axulus]

Do you think a vagina is required to be a positive role model to girls and to allow them to see the viability of focusing on those majors? How much does it help? What does the data say?

Actually yes. Role models are people you can imagine becoming. Because of this, Wonder Woman is not a role model for me.

If the female professor is a red head, and a blonde female is taking the class, does that mean that the blonde can not imagine becoming a red head professor, and thus the red head professor can not serve as a role model to her?

 

[KeepTalking]

Actually yes. Role models are people you can imagine becoming. Because of this, Wonder Woman is not a role model for me.

If the female professor is a red head, and a blonde female is taking the class, does that mean that the blonde can not imagine becoming a red head professor, and thus the red head professor can not serve as a role model to her?

Dying one's hair is trivial. Gender reassignment surgery, not so much

 

[dismal]

Do you think a vagina is required to be a positive role model to girls and to allow them to see the viability of focusing on those majors? How much does it help? What does the data say?

Actually yes. Role models are people you can imagine becoming. Because of this, Wonder Woman is not a role model for me.

Are you suggesting that if most of the students are white males the teachers hired should be white males to maximize the role model imagining effectiveness quotient?

I'm not sure I understand how this "role model imagining" issue justifies discrimination in hiring.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Actually yes. Role models are people you can imagine becoming. Because of this, Wonder Woman is not a role model for me.

Are you suggesting that if most of the students are white males the teachers hired should be white males to maximize the role model imagining effectiveness quotient?

I'm not sure I understand how this "role model imagining" issue justifies discrimination in hiring.

These are excellent points not worthy of a reply.