Biased for science December 10, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in feminism, geophysics, math, physics, science, societal commentary.Tags: bias, feminism, gender equity, iat, science, women in engineering, women in science
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I’ve taken a couple tests at Project Implicit. The premise is that we have unconscious biases that may unknowingly affect decisions we make about other people. I remembered this after coming across an article on race from the Washington Post. I’d taken a test before that said I had a bias against blacks. I’m owning up to it, but now that I’m aware of it, I try to recognize it’s there when making decisions.
I revisited the site to see if I could retake the test and if my results had changed, but I was distracted by the shiny things. In particular, I saw there was a test on the subconscious preference to associate science with male and liberal arts with female. Given the studies about how labs hire women less often and there is a subtle bias in salary, as well, I thought, “this could be interesting.”
And it was. I was expecting to show a rather strong relationship between men and science. Not only is that the most common association, but it seems like working in a male-dominated field would make that a no-brainer.
Your data suggest a moderate association of Female with Science and Male with Liberal Arts…
I’m one of the 3% who took the test who has that association. If what I read in the Washington Post article applies to this study, most of the people taking this test are younger, more liberal, and more female than the average population, so the test may actually mean that the 10% who associate females with science is actually an overestimate.
Why do I have that association, particularly working in the field I do? (I feel a bullet list coming on.)
Some potential ideas:
- Being a female scientist is a very strong part of my identity, so I would naturally equate the two. While at first guess, I would think this would be a no-brainer, the studies I cited above seem to indicate that’s not the case for most women scientists.
- I have a lot of female friends that are also scientists. As an undergrad, I was the only female physics major, but I made friends with a lot of female math, engineering, and physics and math education majors. In my MS program, I spent a lot of time with other women engineering students, the handful I could find. Going to a grad program (in earth sciences) means I was in a program with near gender-parity among the students. Through the beauty of the internet, I’ve also made friends with other women scientists. I think I’m likely to “see” more women in science than the average person…or even the average scientist. “Women in science” isn’t a token female here or there but an actual sizable demographic in my world. I think that this sort of exposure has probably had the most profound effect on my biases.
- I know a lot of men who are interested in liberal arts. Probably the most strongly influential one is older son, who is very much into drawing and writing. I spend a lot of time with him, so that also probably affects my perceptions.
I’m curious how others fare on this test as well as their analysis of their own results.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
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