Biological, Social, and Organizational Components of Success for Women in Academic Science and Engineering Report of a Workshop (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction
Introduction
Pages 1-6
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SEX DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITIES The members of the first panel, "Cognitive and Biological Contributions," presented evidence of differences between males and females in the trajectories of brain development and in average performance on verbal, mathematical and spatial cognitive tasks. Janet Hyde explained that the largest differences were seen in the extremes of performance distributions, with more males found in the top and bottom tails; even so, within-gender differences were much larger than between-gender differences.
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When this happens, the person's cognitive performance, particularly on tests of mathematics ability among women and tests of general intellectual ability among members of racial and ethnic minorities, is negatively affected. Schmader explained that contextual factors, such as predominant stereotypes, can discourage people, especially women and minority-group members, from aspiring to and pursuing science and engineering education and careers and from taking leadership roles.
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What Drago termed unproductive bias avoidance involves efforts to deflect attention from the family responsibilities that a person in fact carries. For example, faculty members may decline opportunities to reduce their workload or to take parental leave in order to appear dedicated to their careers.
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Williams discussed the federal employment laws under which employees can sue -- and employers can be sued -- for family responsibilities discrimination, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. In sum, Williams argued for the need to create a new model for spurring institutional change that specifically names and identifies unexamined bias and considers the risk of family responsibilities discrimination lawsuits.
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Panelists provided demonstrations and data to show that bias is a complex phenomenon that requires multiple remedies, the first among them an explicit examination of the effects of bias on evaluation. Ostensibly gender-neutral institutional policies often disadvantage women scientists, particularly those targeted at women to accommodate family caregiving responsibilities, because women who take advantage of such programs are seen as less serious than their male colleagues.
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· Continued or enhanced funding of research into social and institutional structures and field testing of methods to reduce bias and stereotype threat. A complete summary of the presentations, including figures and references, is presented in the next section.
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