Features the Gender Issue

Features The gender issue Annette Dolphin This collection of articles was born out of a letter that I wrote to Nature1, documenting the highly (University College London) unrepresentative gender distribution in the receipt of scientific prizes and named lectures, taking the Biochemical Society as a example. A subsequent meeting with representatives of the Biochemical Society led to the idea of devoting an issue of The Biochemist to a collection of articles on the barri- ers facing women and minorities in bioscience careers, and the ways in which these hurdles can be overcome. The Editor, Mark Burgess, has done a wonderful job in commissioning a series of essays that portray how far we have come, describe the state we are in today, and indicate the ways in which the problems facing women can be tackled. In their article, Nancy Lane, Caroline Fox and Julia Rachel Tobbell, who are all actively involved in schemes Higgins provide a stark outline of the statistics for the for mentoring women in scientific careers. They describe drop-out of women at various stages of advancement in how women at various stages in their professional lives can their scientific careers. The authors were instrumental in benefit from the advice and judgement of others who have setting up the Athena project in 1999 and in guiding it ‘been there and done that’ Having been a mentor myself, I to find ways of tackling the ‘leaky pipeline’ phenomenon. realize the importance of the training that is available for Here they describe the work of Athena and its important both the mentors and the mentees, since it is vital for the achievements so far. Although the lifetime of this scheme mentor not to off-load onto the mentee all the difficulties is only until the end of 2007, it will be crucial not to lose that we have lived through in our own careers, but rather the impetus for change that Athena has engendered. to enable the younger generation to cope better with the Julia Goodfellow writes from her perspective as Chief problems that they face with their own life choices. Executive of the BBSRC (the first female head of any of the Here I would like to address the problem of hidden research councils) on the progress that has been made in prejudices, which are hard to detect and against which it the representation of women in the biosciences, focusing is very difficult to legislate, but which nevertheless may particularly on the entry into a career in this area. She deter women, not from starting out in their career in describes very clearly that progression of women up the science, but perhaps from fulfilling their true potential career ladder to the top will not happen automatically, and occupying senior positions in academia or industry. unless measures are put in place to monitor the situation and to respond appropriately. The changes that she has Why are there so few women at the introduced at the BBSRC, including monitoring active top of the scientific pyramid? female participation in their committee structure, are exactly the types of measures that increase the prestige of In January 2005, Dr Lawrence Summers, President of women in the scientific community, and help to ensure Harvard University, suggested at an economics con- gender equality in all the activities in which the research ference on ‘Diversifying the Science and Engineering councils are involved. Workforce’ that one reason there are fewer women than Phyllis Starkey MP describes her own progress in an men in science and engineering professorships might be academic career in biochemistry, before she made the innate sex differences in the distribution of intelligence. leap into an equally, if not more, challenging career in Following this, there has been an enormous outcry from politics. She then examines what has been done to outlaw scientists, particularly women, around the world. There discrimination and promote family-friendly policies. We are two extreme schools of thought (and many interme- have certainly come a long way from the situation that diate views): that differences in representation of women Key words: Athena project, Dr Starkey describes, where, as a married woman, she in senior positions in science are either entirely due to BBSRC, Biochemical Society, was not eligible for a PhD stipend. differences in ability, or entirely due to differences in diversity, Equalities Review There follows an informative article on mentoring nurture and/or to discrimination. 2007 from Lucinda Spokes, Jennifer Koenig, Jacki Mason and To fuel the debate, there have been contributions from June 2007 © 2007 The Biochemical Society Women in Science Features The gender issue the two people who have been protagonists of the former we must not forget that scientific advances depend on line of thinking: Stephen Pinker2 and Peter Lawrence3, the talent and motivation of individuals, and scientific essentially attesting that differences in aptitude at the research can be a lonely occupation, fraught with self- extremes of the statistical distribution are the most likely doubt. Although the public perception of scientists is reason that women fail to advance in scientific careers, that we beaver away at the minutiae of our chosen sub- particularly in the ‘hard’ physical sciences, and in engi- ject without regard for greater glory, the reality is that neering and mathematics. we are all human, and every crumb of recognition that A recent commentary from Ben Barres in Nature4 has others value our research is gratefully accepted. brought to the fore the involvement of both intended and Because of this, I thought it might be worth expand- hidden discrimination in this matter. This was also the ing here the letter that I wrote on the subject of gender view taken by Elizabeth Spelke in her debate with Stephen inequality in medals, awards and invited lectures in Pinker2, where she described very eloquently how gender UK scientific society meetings, in order to offer some stereotypes affect the way in which males and females are constructive ideas about what can be done. Some time perceived. She gave several examples that such discrimi- ago, when looking at the websites for the Biochemical nation starts very young, describing the work of Karen Society’s BioScience meetings, I was struck by the paucity Adolph, who investigates infants’ locomotor development: of female speakers. In 2004, 2005 and 2006 respectively, “She asked parents to predict how well their child would one (out of 10), zero (out of ten) and zero (out of seven) do on a set of crawling tasks: parents of sons were more plenary lectures were delivered by women. A much larg- confident that their child would be able to crawl down a er proportion of attendees were female, largely thanks to sloping ramp than parents of daughters. When Adolph the generous student grants that can be obtained for PhD tested the infants on the ramp, there was no difference students. For many of them it will have been their first whatever between the sons and daughters, but there was major scientific meeting, so the message we are giving a difference in the parents’ predictions”. You might say to both genders is that, while young women make up a that this type of study is irrelevant to the matter currently large proportion of the foot soldiers, they will only be a under discussion, but Elizabeth Spelke describes how a tiny proportion of the eventual prize winners. similar bias has been shown to occur when assessors are Because some of these plenary lecturers were recipi- asked to rate a series of curricula vitae, and consistently ents of prizes and medals, I then made a rough count of rate them higher when the subjects of the CVs are given the proportion of women who have received these prizes male identities. Sadly, both male and female assessors over the years, as published on the Biochemical Society’s were equally prone to such ‘gender-labelling’. website (www.biochemistry.org). Recipients’ initials, rather than first names, are given, so I thought I might The importance of prizes and awards in conceivably have mis-attributed the male gender to some career progression of the earlier names. However, before publishing my letter, Nature contacted the Biochemical Society, who agreed One important determinant of career progression and that the statistics were correct. There is also a subtle irony promotion to a senior level is the visibility of a scientist, here, in that prior to about 1980 it was the custom of in terms of whether they have been invited to speak at many societies to use the first names of women, whereas scientific meetings, and any prizes they might have re- men were always identified by their initials. Indeed, when ceived. It should not be overlooked that such recognition I refused to supply my first name, after giving a commu- also provides enormous satisfaction and motivation for nication to the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) as any scientist, and can be particularly important early a PhD student, these rules were eventually amended by in a person’s career, even to the extent of affording an the BPS (as described in the introduction to a supple- incentive to remain in scientific research. In discussing ment to the British Journal of Pharmacology5 to mark the the reasons why women drop out of careers in science, centenary of the BPS. June 2007 © 2007 The Biochemical Society Features Women in Science The prizes awarded by the Biochemical Society in- Box 1: Guidelines for meetings and conferences clude the annual Colworth Medal, given to a promising from the Society for Neuroscience website scientist under 35. It is a horrifying statistic that only one (www.sfn.org) out of 44 recipients between 1963 and 2007 has been a woman.

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