Skip to main content

Gender bias? In photonics?

Yes, this excerpt from a study on gender bias in science is from this year, 2012:

“Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science."

The recent study from Yale University involving several institutions investigated gender bias on the part of faculty in biology, chemistry, and physics, and found that male and female faculty were just as likely to:
  • judge a female student to be less competent and less worthy of being hired than an identical male student
  • offer her a smaller starting salary and less career mentoring
  • appear to be affected by “enduring cultural stereotypes about women’s lack of science competence” that translate into biases in student evaluation and mentoring
  • and yet … report liking the female more than the male student.

“I think we were all just a little bit surprised at how powerful the results were -- that not only do the faculty express these biases quite clearly, but the significance and strength of the results was really quite striking,” Jo Handelsman, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, and the senior author on the paper told The New York Times. Subtle gender bias is important to address, the study said, because “it could translate into large real-world disadvantages” such as not being hired, mentored, or promoted.

“Whenever I give a talk that mentions past findings of implicit gender bias in hiring, inevitably a scientist will say that can’t happen in our labs because we are trained to be objective. I had hoped that they were right,” Handelsman told the Times.

While the Yale study looked specifically at biology, chemistry, and physics, the bias behind the trend has not gone unnoticed elsewhere in the world of science.

One trackable metric is pay. In a survey by SPIE of photonics professionals earlier this year, median salaries for women trail those of men in every region, with the greatest gap in higher-income Asia, and the lowest in the Middle East.

A significant effort to overcome the bias was launched last year in the European Union. SPIE Fellows Zohra Ben Lakhdar and Jürgen Popp were among speakers at the inaugural European Gender Summit in Brussels, which signed a policy manifesto urging gender equality in European research programs. The 2012 summit will be held 29-30 November at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Stories of success from women in science
are featured in the Women in Optics planner.
There is much at stake, both in opportunities for women and, as European Commission Director General for Research and Innovation Robert-Jan Smits notes, "for the full realization of European innovation potential.” And it’s a timely issue for Europe, as policy makers at EU and national levels are deciding on the future of the European research and innovation landscape, and on the implementation details of the initiatives such as HORIZON 2020, European Research Area, and Innovation Union.

Looking for inspiration? Each year, stories of women finding success in optics and photonics are published by SPIE in a “Women in Optics” planner. When launched several years ago, the planner was intended to promote the work of women in the field. It has also become a tool for introducing girls and young women to the possibilities of careers in all sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), with sound advice from successful women scientists all over the world.

Regarding the salary differences shown in the SPIE salary survey, Society Executive Director Eugene Arthurs said that the data point up the need for the industry to look more closely at pay equity. "It is disappointing that such a forward-looking and innovative sector mimics the historical injustice in this," he said. "We hope to see more women quickly realize the leadership positions in the field that their work and capabilities deserve."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Ways to Celebrate the first International Day of Light

The first International Day of Light (IDL) is less than a month away. A global initiative highlighting the importance of light and light-based technologies, communities around the world are planning events celebrating IDL on 16 May. First Place Winner of the 2017 SPIE IDL Photo Contest SPIE will participate in outreach events local to our community in Bellingham, Washington, attend the inauguration in Paris, France, and host an IDL reception for our conference attendees at SPIE Optical Systems Design in Frankfurt, Germany taking place May 14-17. SPIE is also supporting local events in 13 different communities from the US to India, Canada to South Africa, who were awarded SPIE IDL Micro Grants to create activities that highlight the critical role light plays in our daily lives. Do you need some ideas on how to show your appreciation of light on the 16th? Here is our top ten list of ways you can celebrate IDL 2018: 1. Throw a Celebration:  Light up your party with light an

#FacesofPhotonics: NASA Intern Elaine Stewart

MIRROR, MIRROR: Elaine with the JWST at Goddard Space  Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland Meet Elaine Stewart: chemical engineering student, world-traveler, intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and this week's SPIE Face of Photonics. Elaine is fascinated by space exploration and how optics impacts our ability to "study distant stars that have never been seen before." Her research has taken her around the world -- from Bochum, Germany, where she studied material science and engineering at Ruhr-Universität, to Houston, Texas, to work on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) while it was under cryogenic vacuum chamber testing, to Melbourne, Australia, where she studied biochemical and product engineering at the University of Melbourne in 2017. And, when she's not busy traversing the globe, she is focusing on graduating from the University of Delaware in 2019 with a Bachelor's in Chemical Engineering. Elaine makes a point of remaining an active

Taking a Deep Dive into the World of Biophotonics

Gavrielle presents her research in Ven SPIE Student Member Gavrielle Untracht is pursuing her PhD at The University of Western Australia. She had the chance to participate in the 9th International Graduate Summer School in Biophotonics this past June on the island of Ven between Sweden and Denmark. At the school, sponsored by SPIE, invited experts from around the globe gave extended presentations on topics like tissue optics, strategies for cancer treatment using lasers, and entrepreneurship in photonics. Attendees also had the opportunity to present their current research projects, results, or ideas. Gavrielle shares her experiences of the summer school with this community in the following guest blog post. I recently returned from a week of great discussions and beautiful weather at the 9th Biophotonics Summer School on the Isle of Ven, Sweden. This experience, made possible (in part) by SPIE, was an invaluable opportunity for networking and a deep dive into the world of bi