Female Faculty: Why So Few and Why Care? Female Faculty: Why So Few and Why Care? Downloaded from: https://research.chalmers.se, 2021-04-06 00:56 UTC Citation for the original published paper (version of record): Kamerlin, S., Wittung Stafshede, P. (2020) Female Faculty: Why So Few and Why Care? Chemistry - A European Journal, 26(38): 8319-8323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper. research.chalmers.se offers the possibility of retrieving research publications produced at Chalmers University of Technology. It covers all kind of research output: articles, dissertations, conference papers, reports etc. since 2004. research.chalmers.se is administrated and maintained by Chalmers Library (article starts on next page) & Women in STEM Female Faculty : Why So Few and Why Care ? Shina Caroline Lynn Kamerlin*[a] and Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede*[b] Abstract : Despite slow ongoing progress in increasing the representation of women in academia, women remain signif- icantly under-represented at senior levels, in particular in the natural sciences and engineering. Not infrequently, this is downplayed by bringing forth arguments such as inherent biological differences between genders, that current policies are adequate to address the issue, or by deflecting this as being “not my problem” among other examples. In this piece we present scientific evidence that counters these claims, as well as a best-practice example, Genie, from Chalmers University of Technology, where one of the authors is currently employed. We also highlight particular challeng- es caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we conclude by proposing some possible solutions to the situa- tion and emphasize that we need to all do our part, to ensure that the next generation of academics experience a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable working environment. As chemistry professors, we grew up, academically, in a world full of men, and as students and early career researchers, we were so used to this situation we did not seek to question it as being anything but the norm. As we grow academically older, however, we began to ‘see’ more and realize the underlying reasons for why the gender balance is so skewed. Historically, academia was a career path for men, and even today, the number of female faculty is low and gender biases flourish. This is true, also in Sweden where we both work now, a coun- try frequently and rightly praised for gender equality. Even though Sweden is a very progressive country in terms of child- care options, parental leave, etc. , women make up only 16 % of Grade A staff (equivalent to full professor, EU-28 18 %, Fig- ure 1 A) in natural sciences.[1] The challenges to reach a Grade A position can also be measured in the “Glass Ceiling Index” (GCI), which compares the proportions of women in academia at Grades A, B and C positions (with Grade C defined as either postdoctoral scholar or assistant professor depending on country, Grade B being an intermediary faculty position, and Grade A being equivalent to a full professorship), with the proportion of women in Grade A positions, in a given year. As described in Ref. [1] , the GCI can range from 0 to infinity : a GCI score of < 1 indicates that women are more represented at the Grade A level than in academia generally (defined as Grade C or higher), and a GCI score of >1 indicates that women are less represented in Grade A positions than in aca- demia generally, that is, that there is a glass ceiling effect making it more difficult for women to reach a position of top seniority than to enter academia generally, and the larger the GCI score, the stronger this glass ceiling effect. Here, again, de- spite ranking first in the EU on the Gender Equality Index[2] Sweden, nevertheless, scored 1.59 on the GCI in 2016 (Fig- ure 1 B, slightly improved from 1.63 in 2013), compared to an EU-28 average of 1.64.[1] But why are there so few women fac- ulty, and why should we care about it ? We are now in senior faculty positions where we can and do dare to speak up ; and we must do so both in order to help younger female colleagues, as well as to create a better future for all young people. In addition, an inclusive workplace cli- mate that takes into account all aspects of diversity leads to great productivity and collegiality,[3] with a diversity of perspec- tives and viewpoints represented, and therefore benefits us all. Most female scientists have personal stories of things that have happened to them, and while anecdotal evidence is im- portant, it is also significant to emphasize that there now exists a wealth of scientific data on gender inequality in aca- demia. Below, we will highlight the most common responses (truly, resistance) one may get when bringing up gender in dis- cussions and counteract each of them with scientific evidence. We will then present an example of a promising gender equali- ty initiative in academia (currently taking place at one of the authors’ universities), concerns that arise due to the current co- ronavirus crisis, and conclude with our views of possible solu- tions. [a] Prof. Dr. S. C. L. Kamerlin Department of Chemistry – BMC, Uppsala University BMC Box 576, S-751 23 Uppsala, (Sweden) E-mail : lynn.kamerlin@kemi.uu.se [b] Prof. Dr. P. Wittung-Stafshede Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, S-412 96 Gothenburg, (Sweden) E-mail : pernilla.wittung@chalmers.se The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under : https ://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522. Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 8319 – 8323 T 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim8319 Chemistry—A European Journal Science Voices doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3190-1173 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3190-1173 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3190-1173 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3190-1173 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1058-1964 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1058-1964 https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1002%2Fchem.202002522&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2020-06-25 Common Resistance to Gender Equality There is no problem Despite denial by many, there is a problem. Analyses of univer- sities in most countries reveal that the fraction of female facul- ty, and specifically, female professors, is low. In Sweden, 2018, 29 % of all professors across all disciplines were female[4] (16 % in natural sciences ;[1] note that the Swedish numbers are very similar to the EU-28 average[1] , for example in 2016, the pro- portion of female professors (all disciplines) in Sweden was 25 % compared to an EU-28 average of 24 %).[5] It is important to note that this is not due to few women pursuing tertiary and quaternary education. For decades, the relative gender proportion between undergraduate[6] and graduate[7] students, across all disciplines, has been around fifty–fifty. Despite this, the relative proportion of men keeps increasing as one moves up the academic career ladder, and we often depict this as the ‘leaky pipeline’ or the ‘glass ceiling’. In addition, it is important to note that there is a gender pay gap against women in all countries[8] (men earn more on average) and women do more household work than men on average.[9] Recent studies also suggest that women do more so-called ‘academic household’ work, that is, things helpful to the community but not count- ing as merits when competing for elite grants and highly com- petitive senior leadership positions.[10] During the last decade or so, the percentage female professors in Swedish academia has increased by about 1 % per year.[4] But we cannot simply wait until 50 percent is reached, as studies show that progres- sion towards gender equality stops when approximately 25– 30 % of females at the top in a profession is reached.[11] It is all about biology Some people claim that women are not as good as men in cer- tain scientific topics, and women do not have the skills, or do not want, to become leaders. Thus, there is nothing one can do about the situation—but this is totally wrong. If one looks at traits such as ambition, analytical ability, intelligence, physio- logical well-being, personality, cognitive performance and problem solving, there are no differences between men and women.[12] If anything, girls perform better in school than boys.[13] Instead, the explanation includes historical norms, cul- ture, and unconscious bias.[14] We all have built-in norms that are hard to change, and even hard to detect as they are so natural. For example, the Harvard Implicit Association Test shows that most people associated science with men.[15] There are policies in place so today we are fair We think we follow appropriate rules and we are fair, but we are not. For example, the wording used in recommendation letters differs dramatically between letters written for men and for women.[16] Teaching evaluations (such as those found on the Rate My Professor website, https ://www.ratemyprofessor- s.com) show lower ratings for female teachers compared to men, for the same performance, as well as gender bias in gen- eral.[17] Several studies show it is harder for women to publish, women are less likely to be in senior authorship positions, and papers authored by women get less citations than papers by male authors.[18] Success rates for grant proposals from women are lower than for men.[19] A striking study is the John/Jennifer test, where it was clearly shown how unconscious bias is at play.[20] Despite distributing identical CVs for hypothetical ap- plicants for a laboratory manager position to participants (with only the gender of the candidate changed), when the appli- cant name was “male”, he got better evaluations and was of- fered a higher salary than “female” candidates. It is important to note here that both men and women in academia show un- conscious bias against women. Each difference between men and women may be small in isolation, but when these small differences are accumulated, this leads to a “mountain of feathers” effect that contributes to excluding women from full participation in academia, independently of their objective merits as an academic. It is not my problem Many people say they are in favor of gender equality, but they do not want to get involved in equality and diversity issues di- rectly, as they believe such issues do not affect them. But, by being quiet, one supports the current system (a phenomenon sometimes called complicit masculinity). Homophily means men supporting men ; in academia, there are many ‘old boys’ networks’ that set unwritten rules. Women, on the other hand, being in the minority, may become hostile to each other Lynn Kamerlin obtained her PhD at the Uni- versity of Birmingham, followed by postdoc- toral training with Stefan Boresch and Arieh Warshel, before joining the faculty of Uppsala University in 2011, where she is currently a Professor of Structural Biology. She is also a Wallenberg Scholar, Fellow of the Royal Soci- ety of Chemistry, and former Chair of the Young Academy of Europe. Her research fo- cuses on computational physical organic chemistry, protein evolution and enzyme design. In addition, she has been engaged in science policy, with a particular focus on Women in STEM, widening European partici- pation in research, as well as Open Science. Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede obtained a PhD at Chalmers in 1996, followed by a postdoc at California Institute of Technology. In 1999, she started as an assistant professor in Chemistry at Tulane University, New Orleans, where she received tenure in 2002. In 2004 she moved to Rice University, Houston and, in 2008, she re- turned to Sweden and became a professor at Ume, University, followed by, in 2015, a move to Chalmers. Her research centres around pro- tein biophysics, with focus on copper trans- port and amyloid formation. She is a Wallen- berg Scholar, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Sciences, and the Nobel Com- mittee for Chemistry. She heads the Genie initiative at Chalmers. Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 8319 – 8323 www.chemeurj.org T 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim8320 Chemistry—A European Journal Science Voices doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 https://www.ratemyprofessors.com https://www.ratemyprofessors.com http://www.chemeurj.org simply to survive, rather than building on similar network strat- egies and supporting each other. In addition, evaluation of women’s performance becomes subjective rather than objec- tive when gendered (masculine) definitions of excellence are used.[21] In this context, it is important to point out that several studies in recent years have shown mixed groups, or diversity, to result in more successful research and publications with higher impact.[22] Since the goal of universities is to be success- ful, promoting gender equality becomes everybody’s problem and a real strategy to increase university quality and reputa- tion. There is too much already (gender fatigue) There are some people who are now arguing that gender equality has gone too far, and today men are discriminated against instead.[23] This is not true, as if this were the case, the percentages mentioned in the beginning of the text should have been different. Although gender equality has been a topic of discussion, research and policy planning for decades, there have been few concrete actions that have truly trans- formed society. Female scientists and students are still the tar- gets of stereotyped comments and microaggressions on an ev- eryday basis. Even if each individual comment may in itself be unharmful, they build up and affect women’s confidence. Stud- ies show that women underestimate their self-confidence (and Figure 1. (A) Proportion (%) of women among Grade A staff in natural sciences (full professor equivalent). (B) Glass Ceiling Index. The majority of this data is from 2016, although there are exceptions to the reference year in both panels, and data is not available for all countries. Here, “EU” denotes the EU-28 aver- age. Based on raw data presented in Ref. [1] . For methodological details and exceptions, as well as country codes, see Ref. [1] . Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 8319 – 8323 www.chemeurj.org T 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim8321 Chemistry—A European Journal Science Voices doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 http://www.chemeurj.org attribute success to others) whereas men overestimate their self-confidence (and happily attribute others’ success to them- selves), see for example, Ref. [24] . This is important as confi- dence is easier to spot than competence, which in turn has been shown to give men benefits.[24b, 25] The confidence gap will lead to differences in how men and women decide on ap- plying for example, for promotion and grants, with men often pushing through with less merits. Current Initiatives and Perspectives for the Future What is Genie ? One promising initiative to target gender inequality in academ- ia that started in January 2019 at Chalmers University of Tech- nology (Gothenburg, Sweden) is called “Genie” (Gender Initia- tive for Excellence) (https ://www.chalmers.se/genie). Genie is a university-wide effort to increase excellence at the university through gender equality efforts. Genie aims to increase the representation of female faculty and promote gender equal systems and processes as well as to create an inclusive work environment and campus culture. Initiatives such as this are important at all institutions irrespective of discipline, but par- ticularly important at institutions such as Chalmers, as the rep- resentation of women at technical universities has been histori- cally low.[26] For example, at Chalmers, women comprise 17 % of all professors (2018, based on employment data). What gives Genie higher potential for success than many other ini- tiatives are at least three features. First, it is a bottom-up initia- tive, led by members of the faculty, with two professors driving this initiative (which is in contrast to many other such initia- tives which are instead led by administrators). This is important because it means that the Genie leaders will understand other faculty and they will more easily get respect in the organiza- tion. Second, Genie has lots of money, in fact the funding to Genie (E30 million) is the largest ever given to a gender initia- tive in academia.[27] Third, the Genie initiative has a long life- span, 10 years, so the hope is that changes introduced through this initiative can become permanent. The key mission of Genie is to stimulate and help each department to take owner- ship of and responsibility for gender-equality work. Genie will provide the tools, feedback and money to facilitate this. Each department is different, thus tailored work is needed to ad- dress the individual needs of the different departments. Genie will also finance hires of female faculty, support female scien- tists in the system, measure gender-divided data (such as flow of money, sick leave, hires, faculty positions ; all as a function of time), look over policies and in general try to increase awareness. The concept builds on making the university staff wanting to change, not forcing them. After one year, based on feedback from Department Heads and faculty at Chalmers, it is clear that Genie has built trust in the system and increased the awareness of diversity and equity issues. Consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic ? There is a risk that gender equality and diversity work may be forgotten at universities due to the multiple pressures caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, crises affect gender equality negatively.[28] Today, universities around the world have shut down campuses, undergraduate teaching is done online and Zoom has become the new tool for faculty meetings. Most faculty work from home, often surrounded by family. It has already been reported that in the last few months, women are submitting dramatically fewer manuscripts for publication than men.[29] To the best of our knowledge, there is no research yet on how online meetings affect gen- dered power structures. In the long term, we worry that a vir- tual academic life will hamper research creativity, for both men and women, as interactions with peers often underlie new ideas and inspiration. However, if the proportion of female pro- fessors continues to increase at a rate of only 1 % a year[4] (Swedish numbers), the pandemic will be long under control before we reach gender equality in academia. Thus, we should not let the current crisis result in a setback in gender equality work. Possible solutions ? There is no magic bullet to solve gender inequity in academia, but rather, this is an issue one must work to tackle on many levels in many ways, and each and every one of us, irrespective of seniority, play a role in creating a more equitable and inclu- sive working environment for women and other minority groups. To truly change academic culture, most scientists must get onboard and realize such a change is good for all. Both formal and informal leaders in the departments must engage in gender issues and become aware of the current situation. Gender equality must be put on top of universities’ strategic agendas, there must be strong leadership caring for the topic at every level, and awareness/education of all university staff must be increased. Before bias in academic evaluations are re- moved, women need to be prioritized. Scientific excellence (meritocracy) must be guiding all work, although quality must be valued higher than quantity of merits. It is important to note that a lot of university efforts were put into dealing with sexual harassment after #MeToo. But sexual harassment is only the tip of the iceberg ; we also need to address all smaller issues found in the big chunk of ice under the waterline. Those issues are much more common and make up the aca- demic culture we have today. We can all help : by speaking up when things are wrong, pushing on our leaders to make deci- sions that favor equity, collecting data and statistics on gender in different academic contexts, raising our voices to increase awareness, and supporting the women (and other minorities) around us irrespective of their career stages. In fact, we all have a responsibility to get engaged—all of us together form the academic culture. Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 8319 – 8323 www.chemeurj.org T 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim8322 Chemistry—A European Journal Science Voices doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 https://www.chalmers.se/genie http://www.chemeurj.org Disclaimer Science Voices are opinion articles written by scientists around the world and the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Wiley-VCH. Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest. [1] Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commis- sion), She Figures 2018, 2019. [2] European Institute for Gender Equality, Gender Equality Index 2019 : Sweden, 2019. [3] A. J. Stewart, V. Valian, An Inclusive Academy : Achieving Diversity and Ex- cellence, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusets, 2018. [4] A. Haglund, E. Stening, Andelen Kvinnliga Professorer Har :kat Till 29 Procent, Universitets Kanslers gmbetet, 2019. [5] Rathenau Institut, Share of Female Professors, in the Netherlands and EU Countries, 2020. [6] Swedish Higher Education Authority, Higher Educaiton Institutions in Sweden 2019 Status Report, 2019. [7] Statista Research Department, Doctoral Students in Sweden in 2019, by Field of Studies and Gender, 2020. [8] European Commission, The Gender Pay Gap Situation in the EU, 2020. [9] a) M. Mol8n, V-lf-rd 2012, 1, 13 – 17 (in Swedish) ; b) L. Bolter, Kvinnors Karri-r H-mmas av Obetalt Hemarbete, Forte, 2016 (in Swedish) ; c) O. Burkeman, Dirty Secret : Why is There Still a Housework Gender Gap ? The Guardian, 2018 ; d) OECD, Gender Wage Gap (Indicator), 2020. [10] a) T. M. Heijstra, T. Einarsdjttir, F. S. SteinIjrsdjttir, Gend. Educ. 2016, 29, 764 – 780 ; b) T. M. Heijstra, N. Einarsdjttir, Eur. Educ. Res. J. 2017, 16, 200 – 214 ; c) B. Macfarlane, D. Burg, J. High. Educ. Policy Manag. 2019, 41, 262 – 274. [11] N. Sanandaji, The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox, Timbro Fçrlag, Latvia, 2016. [12] J. S. Hyde, Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2014, 65, 373 – 398. [13] D. Voyer, S. D. Voyer, Psychol. Bull. 2014, 140, 1174 – 1204. [14] a) M. R. Banaji, A. G. Greenwald, Blindspot : Hidden Biases of Good People. , Bantam Books, New York, 2016 ; b) A. Saini, Inferior : How Science Got Women Wrong - and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story, Fourth Estate, London, 2017. [15] Project Implicit, Implicit Association Test, 2020. [16] a) K. Dutt, D. L. Pfaff, A. F. Bernstein, J. S. Dillard, C. J. Block, Nat. Geosci. 2016, 9, 805 – 808 ; b) J. M. Madera, M. R. Hebl, H Dial, R. Martin, V. Valian, J. Bus. Psychol. 2019, 34, 287 – 303 ; c) A. Hoffman, W. Grant, M. McCormick, E. Jezewski, P. Matemavi, A. Langas, J. Surg. Educ. 2019, 76, 427 – 432 ; d) F. Lin, S. K. Oh, L. K. Gordon, S. L. Pineles, J. B. Rosenberg, I. Tsui, BMC Med. Educ. 2019, 19, 476. [17] a) D. Storage, Z. Horne, A. Cimpian, S.-J. Leslie, PLoS One 2016, 11, e0150194 ; b) H. K. Morgan, J. A. Purkiss, A. C. Porter, M. L. Lypson, S. A. Santen, J. G. Christner, C. M. Grum, M. M. Hammoud, J. Women’s Health 2016, 25, 453 – 456 ; c) K. M. W. Mitchell, J. Martin, PS Political Sci. Politics 2018, 51, 648-652 ; d) F. Mengel, J. Sauermann, U. Zçlitz, J. Eur. Econ. Assoc. 2018, 17, 535 – 566 ; e) Y. Fan, L. J. Shepherd, E. Slavich, D. Waters, M. Stone, R. Abel, E L. Johnston, PLoS One 2019, 14, e0209749. [18] a) V. LariviHre, C. Ni, Y. Gingras, B. Cronin, C. R. Sugimoto, Nature 2013, 504, 211 – 213 ; b) L. Holman, D. Stuart-Fox, C. E. Hauser, PLoS Biol. 2018, 16, e2004956 ; c) Is publishing in the chemical sciences gender biased ? Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019. [19] a) C. Wenner,s, A. Wold, Nature 1997, 387, 341 – 343 ; b) L. Bornmann, R. Mutz, H.-D. Daniel, J. Informetr. 2007, 1, 226 – 238 ; c) R. van der Lee, N. Ellemers, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2015, 112, 12349 – 12353 ; d) R. Morgan, K. Hawkins, J. Lundine, CMAJ 2018, 190, E487 – E488 ; e) R. Tamblyn, N. Girard, C. J. Qian, J. Hanley, CMAJ 2018, 190, E489 – E499 ; f) P. van der Besselaar, H. Schiffbaenker, U. Sandstrçm, C. Mom in Ex- plaining Gender Bias in ERC Grant Selection - A First Exploration of the Life Sciences Case, 2018. [20] C. A. Moss-Racusin, J. F. Dovidio, V. L. Brescoll, M. J. Graham, J. Handels- man, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2012, 109, 16474 – 16479. [21] M. van den Brink, Y. Benschop, Organization 2011, 19, 507 – 524. [22] a) Nature Editorial : Diversity Challenge, Nature 2014, 513, 279 ; b) M. W. Nielsen, S. Alegria, L. Bçrjeson, H. Etzkowitz, H. J. Falk-Krzesinski, A. Joshi, E. Leahey, L. Smith-Doerr, A. Williams, L. Schiebinger, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2017, 114, 1740 – 1742. [23] N. Bowles, Push for Gender Equality in Tech ? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far, New York Times, 2017. [24] a) K. C. Kling, S. J. Hyde, C. J. Showers, B. N. Buswell, Psychol. Bull. 1999, 125, 470-500 ; b) S. Sandberg, Lean In : Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013. [25] K. Kay, C. Shipman, The Confidence Gap, The Atlantic, 2014. [26] S. Durbin, A. Iopes, S. Warren, Will the Head of Engineering Please Stand Up ? The Under-Representation of Women in Engineering. , Routledge, United Kingdom, 2017. [27] J. P. Myklebust, ‘Largest’ Investment by a University in Gender Equality, University World News, 2019. [28] a) German Federal Ministory for Economic Cooperation and Develop- ment (BMZ), Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Women, Girls and Gender Equality, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Geneva, 2012 ; b) A. Donald, What Price Equity in a Crisis, Bennet Institute for Public Policy Cambridge, 2020. [29] a) C. Flaherty, No Room of One’s Own, Inside Higher Ed. , 2020 ; b) N. Amano-PatiÇo, E. Faraglia, C. Giannitsarou, Z. Hasna, Who is Doing New Research in the Time of COVID-19 ? Not the Female Economists, VOX CEPR Policy Portal, 2020 ; c) P. Vincent-Lamarre, C. R. Sugimoto, V. Lari- viHre, The Decline of Women’s Research Production During the Coronavi- rus Pandemic, Nature Index, 2020 ; d) G. Viglione in Are Women Publish- ing Less During the Pandemic ? Here’s What the Data Say, Nature, 2020. Manuscript received : May 22, 2020 Version of record online : June 25, 2020 Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 8319 – 8323 www.chemeurj.org T 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim8323 Chemistry—A European Journal Science Voices doi.org/10.1002/chem.202002522 http://www.chemeurj.org