My last post about engaging more girls/women to be interested in STEM fields was apparently at least somewhat prescient … at least the topic. This recently published study: “Quality of evidence revealing subtle gender biases in science is in the eye of the beholder,” comes to conclusions such as:

“Ever-growing empirical evidence documents a gender bias against women and their research—and favoring men—in sci- ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Our research examined how receptive the scientific and public communities are to experimental evidence demonstrating this gender bias, which may contribute to women’s underrepresen- tation within STEM. Results from our three experiments, using general-public and university faculty samples, demonstrated that men evaluate the quality of research unveiling this bias as less meritorious than do women. These findings may inform and fuel self-correction efforts within STEM to reduce gender bias, bolster objectivity and diversity in STEM workforces, and enhance dis- covery, education, and achievement.”

It’s even a fairly short read as these things go, so getting bogged down in a time suck isn’t much of an issue. Note the limitations to their study as well as how they did their research which the authors report as well. You might also find this post from Think Progress about the study interesting as well .. note studies the author of the post shares too.

Do the results mirror your experience with gender bias in STEM?

Learning is messy!