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Science>Discouraging
Asia | Japan | Culture

Women outperform men after Japan medical school stops rigging exam scores

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Women have outperformed their male counterparts in entrance examinations for a medical school in Japan that last year admitted rigging admission procedures to give men an unfair advantage. Juntendo University in Tokyo said that of the 1,679 women who took its medical school entrance exam earlier this year, 139, or 8.28%, had passed. The pass rate among 2,202 male candidates was 7.72%. It was the first time in seven years that the pass rate among women was higher than among men, the Asahi Shimbun reported. The university attributed the exam results to its decision to “abolish the u
Latin America | Argentina | Science

Argentina Has More Women in Science—But It Hasn’t Fixed Sexism

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Argentina looks like the most female-friendly place in the world for astronomers. A full 39 percent of professional astronomers there are women, which, yes, passes for remarkable when the number hovers in the teens or below in most of the rest of the world. So what’s going on in Argentina, a country which female scientists there describe as still having “‘machismo’ in the air”? I first began asking this question to astronomers—Argentinian and otherwise—after news broke that renowned UC Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy had been sexually harassing female students for decades. The
North America | United States | Science

The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of STEM

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By now, we’ve all heard about the low numbers of American women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Some argue it’s a pipeline issue. Another theory is that women are choosing to forgo careers in STEM to attain better work-family balance—rather than being pushed out by bias. We conducted in-depth interviews with 60 female scientists and surveyed 557 female scientists, both with help from the Association for Women in Science. These studies provide an important picture of how gender bias plays out in everyday workplace interactions. My previous research has shown tha
North America | United States | Leadership

Self-righteous internet goons are calling one of America’s top female scientists sexist

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The internet came down like a ton of bricks yesterday on Alice Huang. The 76-year-old microbiologist and virologist has been a Harvard Medical School professor, New York University dean of sciences, and president of both the American Society for Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also, according to most of the things published about her in the past 24 hours, an idiot. Huang’s offense was to pen an advice column in the journal Science Careers in response to a (presumably) female postdoc who asked what to do about a male supervisor who ke
International | Science

Testosterone Rules for Women Athletes Are Unfair, Researchers Argue

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Elite women athletes are currently barred from competing in top-tier competitions, such as the Olympic Games and World Championships, if their testosterone levels are too high. But for women with naturally high levels, this regulation may be premature, as the only two large studies done on testosterone levels in professional athletes give conflicting results on how to define the normal levels for women, researchers argue in a new editorial. Despite the lack of data, the 2011 policy has already barred some women, such as Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, from competing on the world stage.
North America | United States | Science

Women Getting Science Ph.D.s Still Face Gender Barriers

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Thousands of college students across California are graduating this month with science degrees. Some dream of careers as researchers and professors, like the people who taught them. But women working toward doctoral degrees in science face gender barriers that can derail their progress. Data from the National Science Foundation show the number of women earning Ph.D.s in all branches of science has trended up over the last two decades. By 2013, women made up half the doctorates awarded in life sciences. That’s the good news. The bad news is having a doctorate in any branch of science does
North America | United States | Science

Report: Disturbing drop in women in computing field

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Almost all of the women on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list — including those not at tech firms — had majored in STEM studies. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, for instance, had a triple-major bachelor’s degree in physics, chemistry, and math. Mary Barra, chief executive of GM, was an electrical engineering major. A new American Association of University Women review of more than 380 studies from academic journals, corporations, and government sources shows a big employment gap in computing and engineering. In some fields, the gap is actually widening over the years — not shrinking.
North America | United States | Science

A new study suggests people have a hard time believing black and Latina women are scientists

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Nearly half of black and Latina women scientists say they've been mistaken for administrative or custodial staff in the workplace, a recent study finds. Forty-eight percent of black women and 47 percent of Latina women said they'd had this experience. The numbers for white and Asian women are lower but still disturbing, at 32 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Those are just some of the findings from new research reported by the Harvard Business Review. The takeaway of the study, by Joan C. Williams, Katherine W. Phillips, and Erika V. Hall, is that personal choices aren't the onl

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