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Science solving gendered STEM shortfalls
By Lisa Harvey-Smith, Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador
Women make up only 17% of people qualified with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills in Australia. At the same time, these skills are becoming increasingly vital in the jobs market. This mismatch is storing up a challenging future for millions of young Australians, who risk missing out on employment opportunities and economic independence.
What actions can we take to stem the tide of gender inequity in the scientific and technical disciplines? Since the purpose of this volume is to celebrate the Australian Nobel Laureates, it is perhaps interesting to view the lack of women and girls in STEM through the prism of the Nobel Prizes.
At the time of writing, only 3% of all Nobel Laureates were women. A 2019 Nature paper found that, even after accounting for the unequal numbers of men and women working in the fields, the Nobel Prizes are unfairly biased towards men^1. This is a symptom of a wider problem; after all, the Nobel Prizes are by no means the only part of our reward system that displays systematic bias.
But in its role as the most reported and celebrated scientific prizes in the world, the bias inherent in the Nobel Prizes is significant because it perpetuates a feedback loop whereby the ‘lone white male genius’ is celebrated. This amplifies the stereotypical norm of academic success, confirming that STEM is seen largely as a ‘male’ pursuit, and thereby cements inequity in our STEM system.
Alfred Nobel stated that, with no regard for nationality (or presumably, gender) the prize should be given to “the worthiest recipient”. As Liselotte Jauffred, one of the authors of the Nature study said in an interview for Science: “[Since] we are creating a very, very small elite group of white men [...] maybe we’re missing a lot of interesting research”.
As the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador my role is to improve the participation of women and girls in STEM education and careers across Australia.
My team is focused on catalysing systemic change that will make the STEM sector more inclusive and ensure Australia’s global competitiveness.
We work with governments, industry, the education sector and the public to change attitudes and behaviours to attract more girls to study STEM subjects. Through targeted national projects we plan to transform the systems and practices that drive women to leave STEM careers.
In the Australian research sector, there is increasing understanding of the need to scrutinise exactly what we choose to reward. As science becomes a connected activity, collaborative and collegial approaches become even more important in driving excellent science. In my discipline (astrophysics), global projects relying on high-quality data from telescopes distributed across the globe, with hundreds of scientists working on major projects of distinction every day, have become the norm.
So why are we still selecting 1-3 people from these enormous teams and celebrating them as if science were still a lone pursuit? Why do we perpetuate the ‘principle investigator’ model when most of the scientific work is actually conducted by students, postdocs and early-mid career researchers?
Currently, men are more likely to reach the most senior academic positions and are also more likely receive research funding. That’s not because men are intrinsically better at scientific research, nor are they better leaders. It’s because our systems are tuned to reward those who have no significant caring and domestic responsibilities. Unequal contributions to domestic labour, coupled with unequal parental leave and the gender pay gap exacerbate the gendered nature of career progression.
Even for researchers without children, implicit bias in refereeing processes leads to inequitable career outcomes. Success depends to some degree on a researcher’s gender and cultural background.
As a consequence, the pipeline to leading to the pinnacle, in this case a Nobel Prize, is riddled with inequity. After adding further layers of bias in the nomination and decision-making processes, is it any surprise that the Nobel Prizes reward largely white male scientists?
Fortunately, there is a fix.
In science prizes, we need to remove inequities in the application and decision-making processes in order to capture more of the best scientific breakthroughs. This was achieved with the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, where gendered language that can discourage women from nominating was removed from application materials, women were actively encouraged to apply through a social media campaign, and judging panel members were reminded at the beginning of meetings to be aware of unconscious bias. These simple actions quite organically produced the first ever gender-equal cohort of recipients in 2019.
Another way to remove bias (which goes much further than just academic prizes) is to anonymise application materials. NASA adopted this approach in allocating time on the Hubble Telescope, with successful results. For the first time in 18 years, proposals led by women had a slightly higher success rate than those led by men.
My team is working with national research facilities to implement this method in Australia in a structured scientific trial, which will provide a strong evidence base for the STEM sector to take action on more equitable processes in future. If international experience is anything to go by, it will immediately reduce gendered and cultural biases that exist in such decision-making processes.
If we are to reap the rewards of the best possible STEM research, we need to reward the very best researchers. Not the most available, or those with access to domestic help, or a surname and career path that matches the norm. As scientists, let’s continue to demand scientific rigour in the ways we do things – and that includes equity in scientific grants, scholarships and prizes.
^1 Lunnemann, P., Jensen, M.H. & Jauffred, L. Gender bias in Nobel prizes. Palgrave Commun 5, 46 (2019).
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